N-Dimensional Interface Materials (DIM)
Abstract
The future generations of intelligent multifunctional materials will react and adapt to their environment, to bring exciting new properties and applications. Such materials would be molecularly designed to react to an external stimulus and change their physical properties in a defined way. Examples could include composites that can be used as smart skins on airplane wings that can sense the environment, self-healing materials that can repair damage at a molecular scale, sensing materials that change optical or electronic properties under defined stimuli, or materials that change shape or physical appearance under environmental changes (such as light, heat, electromagnetic field, pressure, chemical interaction, and so on). It is also desired that such smart materials can simultaneously and dynamically sense multiple stimuli using ground-breaking materials or composites that can not only be integrated into existing technologies, but also lead to new innovative applications that can bring these intelligent materials into the real world. Here we put forth a disruptive new concept for the design of material systems, sensitive to a wide range of external stimuli, through introduction of multiple materials into a composite platform thus creating multiple (N) dynamic interfaces within the structure. Each material or interface within the composite will respond to stimuli and generate a change in its physical properties unique to the nature and intensity of the stimulation involved. Using optical and electrical probes some of these properties will be probed and mapped out to a N-dimensional hyper resolved map (name HyperNdim) that will be updated live in combination with a fast readout scheme. By further referring our HyperNdim map to the pre-calibrated chart of the property response of each material/interface to certain stimuli we will be able to identify the nature and intensity of the stimuli to which the composite is exposed. This will form the basis for evaluation of environments (e.g. heat, pressure, electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields), specific threats (e.g. gases), or dynamic events (e.g. stress) and allow one to sense multiple external stimuli and perturbations without having to use separate sensors for each of the stimuli or changes in the surroundings.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 02, 2019
- Source ID
- W911NF1910353
Entities
People
- Pulickel Ajayan
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Rice University
- United States Army