Principal Investigator: Assistant Professor Zhai Wei, ME

The aim of this project is to develop composite materials with high mechanical strength, low loss, and low density via multiscale and multi-material nature-inspired structures. A breakdown of the specific objectives is as follows:

(i) to develop thin-plate composite materials with enhanced mechanical properties from the nature-inspired microstructure (brick-and-mortar, etc.);

(ii) to systematically study the relationship of the process-microstructure-mechanical properties of the thinplate composite materials;

(iii) to optimize the composition and microstructure of the thin-plate composite materials to achieve low-loss and low-density properties

(iv) to design and fabricate macroscale composite structures (e.g., honeycomb, etc.) aiming for the potential applications with high mechanical strength, low loss, and low-density properties.