Composite Materials Laboratory
Smart structures and composites are designed, fabricated, and tested in the Smart Materials Laboratory. Materials storage and handling equipment includes freezers for storing graphite, Kevlar , and fiberglass prepreg composites, resins, and adhesive tapes. The laboratory also has composite lay-up tables, a vacuum-equipped, computer-regulated oven for cures up to 700*F, and strain gauge, molding, and tooling fabrication equipment.
Composites such as piezoceramic, piezoelectric polymer, magnetostrictive, electrostrictive and shape memory alloys may be fabricated into smart structures and the final products, tested. An abrasive blast chamber can be used for nonlinear piezoceramic patterning and electrode tailoring.
Smart structures fabricated include a solid-state piezoelectric swimming vehicle, super-active shape memory alloy composites, artificial muscle tissues, an adaptive helicopter blade, a helicopter torque cuff, an adaptive missile wing and fins, bimodal laser scanning beams, and the first aircraft (a radio-controlled model) to use adaptive structures for flight control.
- Contains equipment and work space necessary to manufacture small thermoset composite parts and test specimens
- A microprocessor-controlled floor model Blue-M convection oven with internal dimensions of 48"x48"x36" is employed to cure the comoposite parts
- Cold storage equipment is available for long-term thermoset prepreg storage
Structural test data is obtained for the manufactured composite specimens by using the servohydraulic testing machine and the data acquisition equipment in the Structures Laboratory
The following professors are conducting research using the facilities.
