Cooperative Agreement 70NANB20H128

ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING INNOVATIONS LLC (AM-INNOV) IN COLLABORATION WITH CLARKSON UNIVERSITY AND NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY (NRL) PROPOSES A NEW OPTICAL IMAGING SYSTEM TO CHARACTERIZE MICROSCOPIC DEFORMATION OF MATERIALS. THE SYSTEM, NAMED AS A MECHANICAL TESTING AT MICROSCALE SYSTEM (MT@MICRO), USES A MICRO-TENSILE TESTING DEVICE TO MECHANICALLY LOAD THE SPECIMEN UNIAXIALLY AND AN OPTICAL IMAGING PLATFORM TO CAPTURE HIGH RESOLUTION, IN-SITU IMAGES OF THE EVOLUTION OF HETEROGENEOUS DEFORMATION ON THE SPECIMEN SURFACE FOR A LARGE GLOBAL STRAIN. SUCH AN ENORMOUS ADVANCEMENT IN THE CHARACTERIZATION CAPABILITIES COULD BE ACHIEVED BY ADDRESSING THE FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGES OF THE STATE OF THE ART TECHNOLOGY, PRIMARILY THE NARROW DEPTH OF FIELD OF THE MICROSCOPE, LARGE RIGID BODY MOTION OF THE FIELD OF VIEW, AND LACK OF A DATA PROCESSING ALGORITHMS TO EXTRACT CRITICAL ENGINEERING DATA FROM A LARGE NUMBER OF IMAGE FRAMES. MTMICRO WILL HAVE THREE INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO ADDRESS THESE CHALLENGES 1 A SMART IMAGING SUBSYSTEM, 2 A FEATURES DETECTION AND TRACKING SUBSYSTEM, AND 3 A MATERIAL MODELING SUBSYSTEM. SOLUTIONS WILL BE DEVELOPED FOLLOWING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH. THE PROPOSED SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO ADVANCE THE MECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATION AT MICROSCALE WITH AN OPTICAL IMAGING TECHNIQUE INTO A ROBUST MATERIAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT TOOL.