Research Initiatives
Materials for Future Transportation Systems and Energy
Materials are typically a weak link in realizing future generation solutions to some of the major issues that face the 21st century world. For example, efficient, rapid, and safe transportation systems are critical to continued development of urban areas. Coupling energy conservation with new transportation systems requires consideration of radical decreases in weight per passenger and resulting increases in performance.
Increasingly, development of new, reliable lightweight materials is essential to addressing transportation needs. For example, the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner is projected to be the first commercial aircraft utilizing over 50 percent composite materials by weight, with a payoff in terms of 30 percent gain in fuel efficiency per passenger, a revolutionary advance. Research within the Mechanical Properties Research Lab (MPRL) has contributed significantly to understanding durability and performance of composite materials in military and commercial aerospace applications.
Each day thousands of commercial air travelers rely on aircraft gas turbine engines to safely propel them to their destinations. The Ni-base superalloy materials used in the turbine blades in the hot section of each engine are remarkably resistant to high temperature corrosive environments, a result of many years of engineering development. Research within the MPRL is establishing tools for simulating the effects of microstructure of gas turbine materials on fatigue and fracture resistance, with an eye on the designing of the next generation alloys.
Prospects for the success of future generation fuel cell and battery powered vehicles that would lessen dependence on fossil fuels hinge critically on materials durability issues in addition to nanostructured electrodes for enhanced electronic performance. Practical storage of spent fuels from conventional fission nuclear energy plants relies on our understanding of long-term behavior and stability of geological and other containment materials. Environmentally friendly fusion reactors could be realized many years from now if materials could be developed and/or engineered to perform within a systems context to contain sustained reactions.
Current trends in the automotive industry are include hybrid electric-fossil fuel vehicles and lightweight frames constructed from either cellular metals or cast Al and Mg alloys. Challenges to these new materials include environmental resistance and long-term durability.