Materials & Manufacturing

The Shuttle Ice Liberation Coating (SILC) has been developed to reduce the adhesion of ice to surfaces on the space shuttle. SILC, when coated on a surface (foam, metal, epoxy primer, polymer surfaces), will reduce the adhesion of ice by as much as 90 percent as compared to the corresponding uncoated surface. This...

The sixth annual National Nanoengineering Conference returns to Boston this year on November 12-13 at the Boston Colonnade Hotel, featuring the fourth annual Nano 50 Awards, recognizing top 50 technologies, innovators, and products that have significantly impacted the development of nanotechnology. This year's...

Field-emission devices (cold cathodes) having low electron affinities can be fabricated through lattice- mismatched epitaxial growth of nitrides of elements from group III of the periodic table. Field emission of electrons from solid surfaces is typically utilized in vacuum microelectronic devices, including some...

This innovation forms a sprayable polymer film using powdered precursor materials and an in-process heating method. This device directly applies a powdered polymer onto a substrate to form an adherent, mechanically-sound, and thickness-regulated film. The process can be used to lay down both fully dense...

A generic design for a type of flexible structural- health- monitoring sheet with multiple sensor/actuator types and a method of manufacturing such sheets has been developed. A sheet of this type contains an array of sensing and/or actuation elements, associated wires, and any other associated circuit...

A document summarizes the development of a carbon-carbon composite radiator for dissipating waste heat from a spacecraft nuclear reactor. The radiator is to be bonded to metal heat pipes and to operate in conjunction with them at a temperature approximately between 500 and 1,000 K. A goal of...

Smectic A (SmA) materials can be used in non-mechanical, digital beam deflectors (DBDs) as fillers for passive birefringent prisms based on decoupled pairs of electrically controlled, liquid crystalline polarization rotators, like twisted nematic (TN) cells and passive deflectors. DBDs are used in...

USMC6 is a Fortran 90 computer program for post-processing in support of visualization of flows simulated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The name "USMC6" is partly an abbreviation of "TetrUSS — USM3D Solution Cutter," reflecting its origin as a post-processor for use with USM3D...

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are an enabling component in the development of compact, lightweight, durable, high-force actuation systems particularly for use where hydraulics or electrical motors are not practical. However, commercial shape memory alloys based on NiTi are...

Ohio State University physicists have invented a new kind of MRI technique to see inside a magnet that's smaller than the head of a pin. The magnet is a ferromagnet and has too strong of a magnetic field to be studied with typical MRI. The technique may eventually enable the development of extremely small computers, and give doctors...

Researchers at Auburn University's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering have produced antimicrobial coatings with potential to prevent diseases from spreading on contaminated surfaces - possibly solving a growing problem not only in hospitals but also in schools, offices, airplanes and elsewhere. The Auburn researchers mixed...

Atomic-layer deposition (ALD) has been shown to be effective as a means of coating carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with layers of Al2O3 that form strong bonds between the CNTs and the substrates on which the CNTs are grown. It should also be possible to form strong CNT/ substrate bonds using other coating...