Composites center initiates new multidisciplinary effort

The Center for Composite Materials (CCM) has been awarded a cooperative, five-year agreement for its Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Materials Center of Excellence Program. Funding for the first year is $1.2 million.

The new program will focus on the microstructural design of lightweight multifunctional composites. Jack Gillespie, principal investigator of the initial Composite Materials Research (CMR) Collaborative Program, will colead the new effort with Bruce K. Fink, chief of the Composites and Lightweight Structures Branch at ARL.

The Center of Excellence will include 11 UD faculty representing three colleges and seven departments, as well as seven CCM research professionals working in collaboration with ARL scientists and engineers as co-investigators on 16 projects. The program includes personnel exchanges, facilities sharing, internships, educational opportunities for Army personnel and co-advisement of students.

"The new CMR program is a basic research initiative that will continue our tradition of providing an intellectually stimulating and highly interdisciplinary environment here at CCM," Gillespie said. "We're very excited about our new initiatives."

These initiatives include a project on frequency selective surfaces, led by Dennis Prather and Dan Weile, both electrical and computer engineering. Another new project, under the direction of Norman Wagner, chemical engineering, will look at field responsive shear thickening fluids that could revolutionize personal protective materials.

John Xiao, physics and astronomy, will continue his research on the high-frequency behavior nanoscale magnetic composites and will expand the effort with the addition of Siu-Tat Chui, Bartol Research Institute, to study an emerging class of "left-handed" nanocrystalline composites for novel electromagnetic applications.

Finally, Rick Hall, mechanical engineering, will lead an investigation of the relationship between the microstructure of porous metal foams and energy absorption. Hall will work closely with Sergei Lopatnikov, civil and environmental engineering, to develop constitutive models under high strain rate for this class of metals.

Other projects will address a number of important topics, including functionally graded composites, polymer-silicate nanocomposites and tailored interphases for controlled energy absorption.

"In addition to the ongoing collaborative research, we're currently gearing up for summer internships," Gillespie said. "We've had a very successful internship program during the past five years, with students working in our labs at the University or in ARL's facility at Aberdeen Proving Ground. It's a great opportunity for students to gain experience, and we're planning to augment the program this year by holding an undergraduate research symposium at the end of the summer.

"We're very pleased to have the center serve as the focal point for this effort, which involves a broadly interdisciplinary team and a unique mix of activities," Gillespie added. "We're also honored to be selected as a Materials Center of Excellence for ARL and very excited about initiating new collaborations within the University as well as with ARL scientists and engineers."

Established at CCM in 1996 by ARL, the Composite Materials Research (CMR) Collaborative Program was cited by the 1999 ARL Visiting Committee as a model for other government/ university collaborative programs. In addition, basic research conducted under the program was recognized with the award of the Paul A. Siple Medal to a joint UD/ARL research team at the 1998 Army Science Conference. The initial CMR program resulted in several successful technology transitions to the Army.

–Diane Kukich