DesignA design is a concept of either an object, a process, or a system that is specific and, in most cases, detailed. Design refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, though it is sometimes used to refer to the nature of something. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design. In some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan may also be considered to be a design (such as in some artwork and craftwork).
Tempering (metallurgy)Tempering is a process of heat treating, which is used to increase the toughness of iron-based alloys. Tempering is usually performed after hardening, to reduce some of the excess hardness, and is done by heating the metal to some temperature below the critical point for a certain period of time, then allowing it to cool in still air. The exact temperature determines the amount of hardness removed, and depends on both the specific composition of the alloy and on the desired properties in the finished product.
ITERITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, iter meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy through a fusion process similar to that of the Sun. Upon completion of construction of the main reactor and first plasma, planned for late 2025, it will be the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment and the largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.
TokamakA tokamak (ˈtoʊkəmæk; токамáк) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. , it was the leading candidate for a practical fusion reactor. Tokamaks were initially conceptualized in the 1950s by Soviet physicists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov, inspired by a letter by Oleg Lavrentiev. The first working tokamak was attributed to the work of Natan Yavlinsky on the T-1 in 1958.
Superconducting wireSuperconducting wires are electrical wires made of superconductive material. When cooled below their transition temperatures, they have zero electrical resistance. Most commonly, conventional superconductors such as niobium–titanium are used, but high-temperature superconductors such as YBCO are entering the market. Superconducting wire's advantages over copper or aluminum include higher maximum current densities and zero power dissipation.
SuperconductivitySuperconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance decreases gradually as its temperature is lowered, even down to near absolute zero, a superconductor has a characteristic critical temperature below which the resistance drops abruptly to zero.
QuenchingIn materials science, quenching is the rapid cooling of a workpiece in water, oil, polymer, air, or other fluids to obtain certain material properties. A type of heat treating, quenching prevents undesired low-temperature processes, such as phase transformations, from occurring. It does this by reducing the window of time during which these undesired reactions are both thermodynamically favorable, and kinetically accessible; for instance, quenching can reduce the crystal grain size of both metallic and plastic materials, increasing their hardness.
Fusion powerFusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2023, no device has reached net power. Fusion processes require fuel and a confined environment with sufficient temperature, pressure, and confinement time to create a plasma in which fusion can occur.
Participatory designParticipatory design (originally co-operative design, now often co-design) is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners, customers, citizens, end users) in the design process to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable. Participatory design is an approach which is focused on processes and procedures of design and is not a design style. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g.
Design methodsDesign methods are procedures, techniques, aids, or tools for designing. They offer a number of different kinds of activities that a designer might use within an overall design process. Conventional procedures of design, such as drawing, can be regarded as design methods, but since the 1950s new procedures have been developed that are more usually grouped together under the name of "design methods". What design methods have in common is that they "are attempts to make public the hitherto private thinking of designers; to externalise the design process".
Annealing (materials science)In metallurgy and materials science, annealing is a heat treatment that alters the physical and sometimes chemical properties of a material to increase its ductility and reduce its hardness, making it more workable. It involves heating a material above its recrystallization temperature, maintaining a suitable temperature for an appropriate amount of time and then cooling. In annealing, atoms migrate in the crystal lattice and the number of dislocations decreases, leading to a change in ductility and hardness.
User experience designUser experience design (UX design, UXD, UED, or XD) is the process of defining the experience a user would go through when interacting with a company, its services, and its products. Design decisions in UX design are often driven by research, data analysis, and test results rather than aesthetic preferences and opinions. Unlike user interface design, which focuses solely on the design of a computer interface, UX design encompasses all aspects of a user's perceived experience with a product or website, such as its usability, usefulness, desirability, brand perception, and overall performance.
Carbon steelCarbon steel is a steel with carbon content from about 0.05 up to 2.1 percent by weight. The definition of carbon steel from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) states: no minimum content is specified or required for chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, zirconium, or any other element to be added to obtain a desired alloying effect; the specified minimum for copper does not exceed 0.40%; or the specified maximum for any of the following elements does not exceed the percentages noted: manganese 1.
PhotovoltaicsPhotovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially used for electricity generation and as photosensors. A photovoltaic system employs solar modules, each comprising a number of solar cells, which generate electrical power. PV installations may be ground-mounted, rooftop-mounted, wall-mounted or floating.
Mass flow rateIn physics and engineering, mass flow rate is the mass of a substance which passes per unit of time. Its unit is kilogram per second in SI units, and slug per second or pound per second in US customary units. The common symbol is (ṁ, pronounced "m-dot"), although sometimes μ (Greek lowercase mu) is used. Sometimes, mass flow rate is termed mass flux or mass current, see for example Schaum's Outline of Fluid Mechanics. In this article, the (more intuitive) definition is used. Mass flow rate is defined by the limit: i.
Superconducting magnetA superconducting magnet is an electromagnet made from coils of superconducting wire. They must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures during operation. In its superconducting state the wire has no electrical resistance and therefore can conduct much larger electric currents than ordinary wire, creating intense magnetic fields. Superconducting magnets can produce stronger magnetic fields than all but the strongest non-superconducting electromagnets, and large superconducting magnets can be cheaper to operate because no energy is dissipated as heat in the windings.
Web designWeb design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code and proprietary software; user experience design (UX design); and search engine optimization. Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all.
Unconventional superconductorUnconventional superconductors are materials that display superconductivity which does not conform to conventional BCS theory or its extensions. The superconducting properties of CeCu2Si2, a type of heavy fermion material, were reported in 1979 by Frank Steglich. For a long time it was believed that CeCu2Si2 was a singlet d-wave superconductor, but since the mid 2010s, this notion has been strongly contested. In the early eighties, many more unconventional, heavy fermion superconductors were discovered, including UBe13, UPt3 and URu2Si2.
Software designSoftware design is the process by which an agent creates a specification of a software artifact intended to accomplish goals, using a set of primitive components and subject to constraints. The term is sometimes used broadly to refer to "all the activity involved in conceptualizing, framing, implementing, commissioning, and ultimately modifying" the software, or more specifically "the activity following requirements specification and before programming, as ... [in] a stylized software engineering process.
Large Hadron ColliderThe Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundreds of universities and laboratories, as well as more than 100 countries. It lies in a tunnel in circumference and as deep as beneath the France–Switzerland border near Geneva. The first collisions were achieved in 2010 at an energy of 3.
