This award will support Professor John L. Kardos of Washington University in a research collaboration with Professor L. Nicolais of the University of Naples. The investigators plan to continue previously supported work in the area of advanced polymer composites. More specifically, over the next three years they intend to work on: (1) Processing of thermosetting resin composites; (2) processing of thermoplastic resin composites; (3) master model property inputs; and (4) vapor and liquid permeabilities of carbon and glass fiber beds. The researchers are experienced collaborators; their recently completed effort on thermosetting processing research, in which many of the processing models were developed in the U.S. with much of the basic data needed as input to the models obtained from Italy, is an example of the complementarity intrinsic to much of their work. The proposed projects are on the forefront of emerging technology that is critically important to the strategic materials base as well as the economies of both countries.
