Project Grant FA95502410104

This three-year, $356,560 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at Northeastern University to develop impact-resistant phononic sutural gabions. Inspired by biological sutures in woodpecker beaks and plant seedcoats that resist high impacts, as well as engineered seawalls using gabions, the university researchers will investigate a new class of composite materials termed "sutural gabions" expected to significantly mitigate adverse effects from impact and...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to develop a new class of fiber-reinforced plastics (FRPs) based on vitrimers. Vitrimers are polymers that can reverse fatigue-induced damage when exposed to heat, improving the durability, safety, and lifecycle performance of FRPs in high-performance applications such as aerospace, automotive, and medical devices. The $150,027 award to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will systematically...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a 4-year, $400,000 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to Trustees of Boston University for their research project titled "COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: DMREF: CLOSED-LOOP DESIGN OF POLYMERS WITH ADAPTIVE NETWORKS FOR EXTREME MECHANICS." The project aims to develop an integrated experimental and computational platform for accelerated discovery and design of novel polymers exhibiting unprecedented...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $310,661 project grant under the Engineering federal grant program (CFDA 47.041) to develop impact-resistant phononic sutural gabions. The award funds a three-year collaborative research project at the State University of New York at Buffalo ending June 30, 2025. The project aims to advance next-generation shockproof materials by drawing inspiration from biological sutures in woodpecker beaks and plant seedcoats, as well as engineered seawalls using...

This Project Grant award of $350,456 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation supports research at Brown University to characterize, model, and predict the mechanical response of non-uniform soft materials subject to rapid bubble collapse and oscillation. The research aims to leverage inertial cavitation - the rapid, unstable growth and collapse of bubbles - as a tool for ultra-high-rate rheometry of graded hydrogels. The experimental...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) provides $405,431 to The Regents of the University of California, doing business as University of California, Berkeley, to conduct collaborative research on developing polymers with adaptive molecular structures that can withstand extreme conditions. The key objectives are to: 1) pioneer the use of double-threaded polymers to fabricate slide-ring polymers for enhanced...

This three-year, $365,327 National Science Foundation Project Grant through the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will fund research at the University of California, San Diego to develop new energy-absorbing metamaterials with hierarchical and multi-stable internal architectures. The grantee will design foam-like cellular materials with predictable energy absorption capabilities comparable to ideal absorbers. Introducing hierarchy and multi-stability is intended to enhance absorption capacity,...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program supports research and education in the fields of computational materials science and soft matter engineering. The $337,337 award to Cornell University aims to predict how polyphilic molecules can assemble into solid-like and liquid-like domains, allowing the material to both absorb large strains and self-heal. The project will use molecular dynamics simulations to...

This three-year $423,598 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will fund research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop a physics-based contact model for adhesion and friction in multiphasic soft materials swollen by liquids. The researchers will explore rate-dependent mechanisms governing adhesion and friction at interfaces of these materials and correct current contact formulations accordingly. They will derive and validate a unified...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant, funded under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), aims to develop polymers with unprecedented mechanical properties and processibility for use in advanced applications like wearable sensors, soft actuators, and energy harvesting devices. The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) is leading this collaborative $350,229 research effort, which uses a systematic, data-driven approach to create adaptive polymer networks...