Two days ago a wind storm came through our neighborhood in Madison, Alabama. Limbs came down, the power flickered, and by evening everything seemed to be over. This morning, in calm air, one of the wooden distribution poles on our street broke through at about… Read more
A question that comes up whenever a laboratory is planning its first large electrodynamic shaker installation: the specification and the quotations keep referring to a seismic mass, or a reaction mass, or an inertia block. Is that a real, physically heavy object that has to… Read more
ETH Zurich researchers have built a quantum chip whose working memory is not electromagnetic — it is mechanical. For those of us who work in structural dynamics, this is modal analysis pushed to its ultimate limit. In July 2026, the Hybrid Quantum Systems Group at… Read more
A departure from the usual structural dynamics and forensic engineering material — a personal aside on speech as an acoustic information channel, prompted by a conversation about why some languages sound faster than others. Speech as a Communication Channel: Why Fast Languages Aren’t Actually Faster… Read more
The London Eye: A Sound & Vibration Field Study from Inside a Capsule Revised 5 July 2026 to correct the interpretation of the low-frequency harmonic series. Riding the London Eye on 5 July 2026, I ran an impromptu two-sensor experiment from my seat: a smartphone… Read more
Introduction Liquid hydrogen (LH₂) and liquid oxygen (LOX) are the highest-performing chemical propellant combination available to launch vehicle designers, delivering specific impulse values in the 450–460 second range in vacuum. The BE-3U engine powering Blue Origin’s New Glenn GS-2 upper stage, the RL-10 family powering… Read more
Rolling-element bearings are a masterpiece of mechanical engineering. They are also a notorious headache for Finite Element Analysis (FEA) engineers. Because they rely on Hertzian contact, bearings are inherently non-linear systems. The rolling elements, raceways, contact angles, internal clearances, and thermal conditions all shift dynamically… Read more
The B-52 Involved In Tragic Crash Was Heading out on Radar Test Sortie The mission objective was to test a new Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system (the Raytheon APQ-188), which is a core component of the upcoming B-52J upgrade package. B-52 Crash at… Read more
MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) devices are miniature sensors or actuators fabricated using semiconductor manufacturing techniques, integrating microscopic mechanical structures and electronic circuitry on a single silicon chip. They use tiny moving elements such as beams, proof masses, diaphragms, or comb structures to sense or control physical… Read more
Tough day for Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Blue Origin was performing a static fire (hotfire) test ahead of an anticipated fourth launch — the rocket was likely fully fueled, contributing to what is described as one of the largest rocket explosions in U.S. history. Blue Origin,… Read more