Shows / Engineering Matters
Engineering Matters
Five times winner of the Publisher Podcast Awards, including Best Technology Podcast, Engineering Matters celebrates the work of engineers who use ingenuity, practicality, science, theory and determination to build a better world. In the UK alone 5.7million people work in engineering related enterprises from manufacturing and agriculture to construction and transportation. Their work ensures that the country has sustainable power supplies, better connectivity between cities, increasing…
Episodes
- Engineering Matters
#68 The Future of Design
Changes to the way we do design are coming; construction is languishing at the bottom of the productivity rankings, now below hunting and fishing…
- Engineering Matters
#67 The Future is Remote and Autonomous
Remotely operated vehicles, uncrewed surface vessels and ever-increasing autonomy are removing personnel from dangerous work offshore in the North Sea and…
- Engineering Matters
#66 Fever Screening in Airports
As a small island trading nation, Britain risks killing its economy and losing millions of jobs, unless it can allow people to get back to work in as normal a…
- Engineering Matters
#65 Every Little Helps
At the start of the Covid-19 lockdown, one of the few reasons people were allowed to leave their homes was to shop for the basic essentials. Social distancing…
- Engineering Matters
#64 EDAROTH
Manchester – the city has been on the cutting edge since the birth of the industrial revolution. From John Dalton’s Atomic Theory in 1803, to the invention of…
- Engineering Matters
#63 Nine Days to Build a Hospital
When Dan Harmer received a call in March that told him to clear his schedule and prepare for a meeting, he knew it would be important, but had no idea quite…
- Engineering Matters
#62 The Washing Machine Project
Hundreds of millions of people in the most economically disadvantaged places in the world spend up to 20 hours per week washing clothes by hand. This task…
- Engineering Matters
#61 Countdown to British launch
On 28 October 1971 the UK conducted its first and only successful orbital launch, firing the Prospero satellite into low earth orbit – LEO on a Black Arrow…
- Engineering Matters
#60 Covid 19: Creating safer spaces
Britain is emerging from some of the toughest social restrictions placed in peacetime history. As people come out of their homes, they are eager to meet…
- Engineering Matters
#59 Empowering Ethical Engineering
Engineers are in a uniquely powerful position. Able to shape our built environment and so influence the direction of civilisation, the impact that their…
- Engineering Matters
#58 Construction declares climate emergency
Since mid-2019, over 900 architectural practices in the UK have made a declaration of climate and biodiversity emergency, acknowledging the extreme seriousness…
- Engineering Matters
#57 Printing versus the pandemic: COVID 19
The coronavirus pandemic that has torn through society has also seen supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) depleted at an alarming rate. As doctors…
- Engineering Matters
#56 The Biodiversity Emergency
Biodiversity in the UK is facing an emergency with around 30 percent of native species becoming extinct since the 1970s. This loss of wildlife, which echoes…
- Engineering Matters
#55 Saving Structures with Satellites
How data from satellites can track structural movement, and give early warning of potential failure. New research shows that catastrophic bridge collapses…
- Engineering Matters
#54 Keith Bannerman: A life underground
Carving out underground space for railways, roads, waterways, urban development and even fishing and farming is how some people spend their entire careers. One…
- Engineering Matters
#53 Technology vs biology: fighting COVID 19
As cases of COVID 19 explode, the World Health Organisation is urging countries around the world to learn from South Korea. Before even recording its first…
- Engineering Matters
#52 Tunnelling Podcast: Propping up Luton Airport’s new rail link
How a new 2.5km cable pulled railway will connect Luton Airport’s terminal to the UK rail network boosting future growth. Today rail passengers arriving at the…
- Engineering Matters
#51 Covid 19: Disaster Resilient Infrastructure
The rapid and exponential spread of the new coronavirus, COVID 19 is changing the way that we live and work. First detected in December 2019 in Wuhan City…
- Engineering Matters
#50 Dealing with Nuclear Waste
The UK has a legacy of 600,000 tonnes of nuclear waste being held in temporary storage facilities at 30 sites around the country. It is enough to fill a…
- Engineering Matters
#49 Uncharted waters: Flooding and drought
This winter a series of weather bombs detonated across the UK, overwhelming river systems and overtopping flood defences. River levels were off the charts…
- Engineering Matters
#48 Paving the way in pothole prevention
How nematode worms, 3D printing and drones could revolutionise our approach to maintaining road surfaces. According to the RAC we are 1.5 times more likely to…
- Engineering Matters
#47 Breathalysing Whales: Drones Revisited
An update on our Drones episode from January 2019 where we learn about new uses for unmanned aerial vehicles, and celebrate being shortlisted for three awards…
- Engineering Matters
#46 Metro stations: The gateway to the city
A tremendous change occurred with the industrial revolution: whereas it had taken all of human history until around 1800 for world population to reach one…
- Engineering Matters
#45 Offshore Wind, Part 2 : Foundations for the Future
How new technology is supporting the UK’s offshore wind industry to bring down costs and accelerate construction. From new methods for drilling into the…
- Engineering Matters
#44 Offshore Wind, Part 1: Becoming a World Leader
Over the past two decades the UK has become the world’s leading offshore wind energy producer. Not only is it responsible for 40% of all offshore wind…
- Engineering Matters
#43 Virtual Reality: transforming design
From new immersive technologies to life saving applications, virtual reality is finally meeting up to expectations of the 1990s and transforming the way that…
- Engineering Matters
#42 Surviving a tunnel fire
This week we are bringing you an episode of our newly launched Tunnelling Podcast, made in partnership with the British Tunnelling Society. In March 1999, the…
- Engineering Matters
#41 Crunch Time for Net Zero
Last year the UK set a legally binding target to become carbon neutral by 2050, ahead of any other major global economy. In doing so it took the first…
- Engineering Matters
#40 Becoming a Role Model: Ying Wan Loh
Becoming a Role Model: Ying Wan Loh From rotary drilling on Mars to hybrid-electric aviation and the expansive global supply chains of the aeronautical…
- Engineering Matters
#39 Heathrow: Leading the digital charge
Heathrow has announced an ambitious expansion plan that will add a third runway and take the airport to cope with growing demand up until 2050. It calls for…
- Engineering Matters
#38 Temporary Heroes: Construction’s Unseen Infrastructure
What do the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Ipswich Barrier and Heathrow Airport have in common? None of them could have been realised without a complex network of…
- Engineering Matters
#37 Solving the Productivity Puzzle
Historically, the nation’s productivity has improved with economic growth, but since the global financial crisis and despite the UK’s recovery, productivity…
- Engineering Matters
#36 The Calculator that Could Save the World
How a calculator is helping countries around the world to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and create more sustainable energy systems. When Professor David…
- Engineering Matters
#35 The Quantum Enabler: Professor Sir Peter Knight
As Quantum computing becomes a 21st century reality, Professor Sir Peter Knight explains why controlling the register of quantum bits that make up a quantum…
- Engineering Matters
#34 Crisis Shelter for Mass Displacement
Noorullah Kuchai is a civil engineer, a humanitarian and a refugee twice over. He lived in a tent in a Pakistani refugee camp for a decade and is now…
- Engineering Matters
#33 Future Factories: Driving forward industry 4.0
World leading smart robotics, industry disrupting technologies and the next generation of augmented reality are just some of the advances in action at…
- Engineering Matters
#32 The untold story of Eiffel and his Tower
Had its use as a gigantic 300m high radio antenna not been recognised in the early 1900s the magnificent Eiffel Tower, would have been pulled down and…
- Engineering Matters
#31 Creating a National Digital Twin
Back in December 2017 the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission set the UK a huge challenge: to create a digital model of our national infrastructure. Known…
- Engineering Matters
#30 Interviewing Dad: Atkins President Philip Hoare
Chloe is 16 and interested in an engineering career. She is also the daughter of Philip Hoare, President of engineering consultant Atkins. To find out more she…
- Engineering Matters
#29 Innovations in Renewable Energy: Lorna Bennet
Growing up in a tiny village in rural Scotland, regular power cuts would leave Lorna Bennet and her family without electricity for days on end. Determined to…
- Engineering Matters
#28 Building for Biodiversity
Habitat for the UK’s Great Yellow Bumblebee has declined 80 percent over the last century thanks to the loss of the flower rich meadows that sustain them. They…
- Engineering Matters
#27 Recycling Plastic into Roads
After 844 trial tests, and setting his own street on fire, founder of Scottish start-up MacRebur Toby McCartney finally hit on a viable solution for repairing…
- Engineering Matters
#26 Saving Rossington
Placing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals at the heart of projects can regenerate UK communities. From a new 4km road link that saved a former…
- Engineering Matters
#25 Return of the Fatbergs
Underneath cities all over the UK subterranean mountains of calcified fat are gathering in our sewers as fat, oil and grease stick to baby wipes and harden to…
- Engineering Matters
#24 Unleash the Hydrogen Potential
Could the lightest element in the periodic table be the answer to the world’s most weighty challenge of decarbonising energy? Hydrogen is the most abundant…
- Engineering Matters
#23 Becoming an astronaut: Sophie Harker
It was a meeting with the first Briton in space, Dr Helen Sharman, that changed the course of Sophie Harker’s life forever. A maths student at The University…
- Engineering Matters
#22 Electric Excavators: Cities cut carbon in construction
Since 1913 the world’s most famous flower show has been held every Spring in Chelsea in London. This year among the electric blue Persian Slippers, the white…
- Engineering Matters
#21 Electric Aviation: Meeting demand for low emission flight
Norwegian airline Widerøe needs a new fleet of planes to serve its regional passenger base. But it doesn’t want to buy conventional aircraft. It wants a zero…
- Engineering Matters
#20 Electric Vehicles: Lessons from world leading Norway
How did Norway become the world’s most successful electric vehicle market? Last month almost 80 percent of all new cars sold in Oslo were EVs and across the…
- Engineering Matters
#19 Future of 3D Printing
From additive manufacturing in space, to 3D printing customised pharmaceuticals and non-planar electronics, the next revolution in 3D printing is already…
- Engineering Matters
#18 Cocoa Power
Four thousand years after it was first used as a form of nutrition for the Olmec people of Mesoamerica, engineers are finding new ways to harness the potential…
- Engineering Matters
#17 Acting on climate change
As young people all over the world protest over political inaction on climate change, we ask how engineers can prevent our planet’s temperature rising past the…
- Engineering Matters
#16 Designing green buildings
Do plants hold the key to making cities healthier? Could we design buildings that don’t take away green space, but create it? That don’t demand energy, but…
- Engineering Matters
#15 Engineering Elephants: Brittany Harris
Providing water and sanitation after a destructive military revolution in Peru; engineering with elephants in Kenya; and plunging into enormous pot holes in…
- Engineering Matters
#14 The Bridge Man: Dr Robin Sham
How did a circus act inspire a revolutionary new construction method for Scotland’s first glass fibre reinforced polymer, cable stayed footbridge? Why did…
- Engineering Matters
#13 Secrets of the Hoover Dam
Are there really bodies buried in the Hoover Dam? Was the hard hat really invented here in 1931? And why was it originally called Boulder Dam? In this podcast…
- Engineering Matters
#12 The Drone Boom
No-one knows how many penguins are in the Antarctic, but thanks to the use of drones this is set to change as scientists are using these unmanned aerial…
- Engineering Matters
# 11 The robots are here
Robots are not just coming. They are already here. From TyBot which can tie steel reinforcement into position on bridges, to the road marking wizard Little…
- Engineering Matters
#10 How China has automated road design
With 4.8 million kilometres of road China sits third in the world in terms of length of highways behind only the US and India. But its huge investment budget…
- Engineering Matters
#9 The race to create Hyperloop
Right now companies around the world are competing in a global race to prove that a new transport revolution is just a few years away. Using high speed transit…