COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH:
RATIONAL DESIGN OF POLYMERIC MICROTRUSS STRUCTURES AS HIGHLY-ORDERED MULTIFUNCTIONAL COATINGS
Vladimir V. Tsukruk, Edwin L. Thomas
Materials Science and Engineering Department, Iowa State University, Ames IA
Materials Science and Engineering Department, MIT, Cambridge, MA
The goal of this project is to study plastic structures that are in the shape of simple bridge-like (technical term is a truss) shapes. So far no one has made these things at really tiny sizes. These structures would be so small one cant see the individual parts of the truss with your eyes. In order to make such small things one needs to use a special type of plastic, called a photoresist. By simply shining light on the photoresist it is possible to make the shapes. These tiny plastic trusses are open and have a lot of space between their parts, just like the beams one sees that are the parts of cell phone towers and bridges. Hence the overall weight of the structure is quite low.
These new kinds of tiny light weight trusses will be very strong and can be used to make devices such as unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and also to make body armor for soldiers to wear. To do the research Ph.D. students have to learn cutting-edge fundamental research in materials design and engineering. The professors working on this project will continue their efforts to increase the number of students pursuing advanced degrees in science and engineering by working with several recruiting programs that help underrepresented high school students for summer internships to come to Georgia Tech and MIT to work alongside the graduate students to make and test the materials.
