C-Mode Scanning Acoustic Microscope for Understanding Fundamentals of Failure in Military-Relevant Materials
Abstract
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, under authority of 10 U.S.C. ¤ 2362 and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OASD(R&E)), allocated $28 million to assist Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI) with equipment and instrumentation enhancements to improve their research and education capabilities in scientific disciplines important to the defense mission. The program aims enhance the capacity of HBCU/MI to participate broadly in defense research programs and activities and to increase the number of graduates, including underrepresented minorities, in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The research and education fields at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) relevant to the DoD priorities include fatigue and fracture, nondestructive evaluation, new sensors and materials design. Currently, the capabilities at UIC limit the investigation of subsurface defects without destructively testing the materials. The equipment to be acquired by UIC in this proposal is a Sonoscan Gen6 C-mode Scanning Acoustic Microscope (C-SAM), a tool for studying the internal microstructure of nontransparent solids and composites. A C-SAM is an ultrasonic instrument that produces acoustic images by mechanically scanning an ultrasonic transducer in a raster pattern over the specimen. Acoustic microscopy allows imaging of the specimenÕs surface and subsurface features with high spatial resolution. This is a cleanroom ready, laboratory size instrument. The C-SAM can scan materials as large as 308 mm x 308 mm. The UIC Nanotechnology Core Facility will house the C-SAM, making it convenient for faculty across UIC, other universities and companies in the Chicago region to use the equipment for research and education. In addition to enhancing current research projects, the equipment will promote the development of new research areas in the fields of structural materials, platform structures, and naval materials science and technology (Office of Naval Research programs), as well as engineering and complex systems in the physical sciences (Air Force Office of Scientific Research programs) and environmental sciences (ONR, USACE). The C-SAM will be utilized by several researchers in the UIC College of Engineering (COE) departments of Civil and Materials Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 06, 2017
- Source ID
- W911NF1610500
Entities
People
- Didem Ozevin
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- University of Illinois at Chicago