(4x) Understanding Mechanically Robust Materials: An Important Issue in the Energy Problem

Increasingly important challenges such as energy needs and utilization of a growing global population can be approached from different perspectives. Materials with novel properties often play a crucial role in new technology that aim to address these challenges. Accordingly, emerging technologies will show augmented structural complexity and functional richness. Regardless of any specialized or application-driven property, e.g. ionic conductivity for batteries, the mechanical integrity of new materials will greatly influence their overall performance as consumer products. Simply put, if the new technology is not mechanically robust to be handled, it will remain useless in a greater scheme. Traditionally, mechanical performance has been the primary focus in structural composite applications. The transportation industry provides excellent examples where lightweight yet robust materials permit reductions in energy requirements and footprint. However, understanding the relationship between structure and mechanical response must be considered in a broader sense. As novel materials are designed with increasingly complex structures there is a growing need for fundamental understanding of the mechanical properties of these often multi-component materials. The example presented here shows how these challenges can be addressed by combining different techniques. Simultaneous small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) was used to probe local deformation processes of nanostructured epoxies under tension. These events were correlated to the macroscopic mechanical response and possible toughening mechanisms. With recent advances in SAXS, this approach can be easily extended to study the mechanical interaction of complex structures and multi-length scale phenomena within the material. The goal of the research program I will establish is not only to obtain materials with controllable structures, but also to understand the fundamental processes that govern the mechanical interaction of components or structural features and how they determine deformation and failure.