Project Grant W911NF2110096

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation awarded a 5-year, $531,018 CAREER: Fundamentals of Entropy-Driven Mechanics of Flexible Nanostructures project grant (CFDA 47.041 Engineering) to the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). This project will develop coupled statistical mechanics and solid mechanics models to understand the fundamental mechanics of flexible, plate-like nanostructures such as 2D materials and biomembranes, which...

This $562,789 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to Arizona State University aims to deepen the understanding of deformation mechanisms in axially bi-continuous graphene-nickel composites. The project will leverage new laser-based material processing and microdevice-based characterization methods to investigate the strengthening mechanisms of these graphene-metal composites, which can potentially lead to the development of...

This Project Grant award, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program, supports research into developing ultra-high-strength carbon nanofibers through the process of pyrolysis. The $390,152 award, effective September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2028, will be carried out by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (Tees). The key objectives of this research project are to investigate the impact of defects, such as...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $199,984 to Kennesaw State University Research And Service Foundation, Inc. (KSU R&SF) to study the impact of mechanical strain on the thermal transport characteristics of various 3D carbon nanostructures, such as pillared graphene structures, 3D graphene foam, and carbon nanotube network films. The goal is to enhance understanding of how mechanical deformation affects the heat...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program Project Grant award to the University of Houston System will investigate the mechanics and design of a new class of optimal biomimetic shell structures termed "torenes." The 3-year, $334,569 award aims to disentangle the roles of differential geometry and associated parameters in modulating the strength and stability of these highly resilient topological structures. The research will involve finite element analysis, numerical...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $307,450 to The Trustees of Princeton University to conduct collaborative research on a new class of optimal biomimetic shell structures termed "torenes." The research aims to investigate the mechanics, geometric properties, and optimization of these multilayer plate and shell structures inspired by the nuclear envelope in human cells. Key objectives include performing...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $216,000 Project Grant to Southern Illinois University Carbondale under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program. The two-year project will fund research to understand the thermomechanical response of sandwich structures with triply periodic minimal surface core lattice architectures. The university researchers will use numerical simulations and experimental testing to examine how structured core designs, including gyroid, diamond, and primitive...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $375,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop a fundamental understanding of a new class of engineered materials - three-dimensional woven architected nano-composites. The research aims to validate the hypothesis that these printable nano-composites, with tunable electrical properties and complex nonlinear mechanical responses, can provide a new paradigm for...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Directorate (CFDA 47.041) provides $624,884 to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) to conduct research that aims to enable the reliable design of nanostructured devices. The key objectives are to: Investigate the probabilistic strength distribution of nanoscale materials and structures using high-throughput testing to generate statistically significant data. This data will be used to evaluate and develop more...

This five-year, $616,685 National Science Foundation project grant will fund research at Arizona State University to elucidate the synergistic effects of composition, porosity, and structural rigidity on the mechanics of metallic organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are porous hybrid materials consisting of metallic ions connected by organic linkers to form a vast reinforced network with potential for industrial CO2 capture, separation, and storage applications. The grant will support an integrated...