Christoph Schaal
Peter L Bishay
Manuela Dantas
Jamie Booth
Multi-Scale Mechanical Characterization Laboratory
Project Type:
Project
Project Sponsors:
- US Department of Defense - DOD
Project Award:
- $1,098,518
Project Timeline:
2021-07-20 – 2022-07-19
Lead Principal Investigator:
Project Team:
Principal Investigator |
Principal Investigator |
Principal Investigator |
With this grant, the PIs establish a new, interdisciplinary Multi-Scale Mechanical Characterization Laboratory (MMCL) at CSUN. The proposed MMCL will greatly extend current research capabilities and allow for new cutting-edge research avenues. In particular, the new laboratory will enable interdisciplinary work on key thrusts of the identified DoD agency technical areas. Planned projects include the design of smart, composite and lattice materials spanning the nano, micro and macro scales, as well as the realization of highly-attenuating, reconfigurable, and tunable structures, materials and interfaces. The impact of the MMCL will be synergistic in that it will allow for greater utilization of existing laboratories (e.g. Keck Composites Laboratory and Haas Manufacturing Laboratory), which feature state-of-the-art equipment such as a large-scale autoclave. All research proposed will involve students at the graduate and undergraduate level, and will focus on characterization of materials for the development of new capabilities in mission critical structures. Moreover, integration into the Mechanical Engineering curriculum will create a series of new high-impact, experiential instructional activities that incorporate the requested equipment into the classroom. Students will gain familiarity with the tools through demonstrations and data analysis at the undergraduate level (e.g. undergraduate students will analyze manufacturing flaws in composites based on microscopy images), and become fully-trained users by the culmination of graduate electives (e.g. graduate students will perform vibration testing of components with embedded smart material elements by laser Doppler vibrometry).