A finding by a University of Central Florida researcher that unlocks a means of controlling materials at the nanoscale and opens the door to a new generation of manufacturing is featured online today in the journal Nature.
Using a pair of pliers in each hand and gradually pulling taut a piece of glass fiber coated in plastic, associate professor Ayman Abouraddy found that something unexpected and never before documented occurred – the inner fiber fragmented in an orderly fashion.
“What we expected to see happen is NOT what happened,” he said. “While we thought the core material would snap into two large pieces, instead it broke into many equal-sized pieces.”
He referred to the technique in the Nature article as “Breaking Me Softly.”
The process of pulling fibers to force the realignment of the molecules that hold them together, known as cold drawing, has been the standard for mass production of flexible fibers like plastic and nylon for most of the last century.
Abouraddy and his team have shown that the process may also be applicable to multi-layered materials, a finding that could lead to the manufacturing of a new generation of materials with futuristic attributes.
“Advanced fibers are going to be pursuing the limits of anything a single material can endure today,” Abouraddy said.
For example, packaging together materials with optical and mechanical properties along with sensors that could monitor such vital sign as blood pressure and heart rate would make it possible to make clothing capable of transmitting vital data to a doctor’s office via the Internet.
The ability to control breakage in a material is critical to developing computerized processes for potential manufacturing, said Yuanli Bai, a fracture mechanics specialist in UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Abouraddy contacted Bai, who is a co-author on the paper, about three years ago and asked him to analyze the test results on a wide variety of materials, including silicon, silk, gold and even ice.
He also contacted Robert S. Hoy, a University of South Florida physicist who specializes in the properties of materials like glass and plastic, for a better understanding of what he found.
Hoy said he had never seen the phenomena Abouraddy was describing, but that it made great sense in retrospect.
The research takes what has traditionally been a problem in materials manufacturing and turned it into an asset, Hoy said.
“Dr. Abouraddy has found a new application of necking” – a process that occurs when cold drawing causes non-uniform strain in a material, Hoy said. “Usually you try to prevent necking, but he exploited it to do something potentially groundbreaking.”
The necking phenomenon was discovered decades ago at DuPont and ushered in the age of textiles and garments made of synthetic fibers.
Abouraddy said that cold-drawing is what makes synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester useful. While those fibers are initially brittle, once cold-drawn, the fibers toughen up and become useful in everyday commodities. This discovery at DuPont at the end of the 1920s ushered in the age of textiles and garments made of synthetic fibers.
Only recently have fibers made of multiple materials become possible, he said. That research will be the centerpiece of a $317 Million U.S. Department of Defense program focused on smart fibers that Abouraddy and UCF will assist with. The Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Manufacturing Innovation Institute (RFT-MII), led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will incorporate research findings published in theNature paper, Abouraddy said.
The implications for manufacturing of the smart materials of the future are vast.
By controlling the mechanical force used to pull the fiber and therefore controlling the breakage patterns, materials can be developed with customized properties allowing them to interact with each other and eternal forces such as the sun (for harvesting energy) and the internet in customizable ways.
A co-author on the paper, Ali P. Gordon, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and director of UCF’s Mechanics of Materials Research Group said that the finding is significant because it shows that by carefully controlling the loading condition imparted to the fiber, materials can be developed with tailored performance attributes.
“Processing-structure-property relationships need to be strategically characterized for complex material systems. By combining experiments, microscopy, and computational mechanics, the physical mechanisms of the fragmentation process were more deeply understood,” Gordon said.
Abouraddy teamed up with seven UCF scientists from the College of Optics & Photonics and the College of Engineering & Computer Science (CECS) to write the paper. Additional authors include one researcher each from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the University of South Florida.
Learn more: ‘Breaking Me Softly:’ UCF Fiber Findings Featured in Nature
The Latest on: Breaking Me Softly
[google_news title=”” keyword=”Breaking Me Softly” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Breaking Me Softly
- Blue Heeler Puppy Abandoned at the Park with a Broken Leg 🥺on April 30, 2024 at 9:58 am
Walking into the shelter, I braced myself to meet this little fighter. The team had filled me in—a little dog, a severe injury, but still, nothing could truly prepare me for the moment I laid eyes on ...
- Four Reasons Why Your Brand Is Killing Your Business Softlyon April 30, 2024 at 5:45 am
Younger audiences are magnetized to authentic brand content because, as it stands, the world is drowning in shiny objects and loud noises. UGC very explicitly meets them where they are, and tells them ...
- Margo: Two words for technology — thumbs downon April 29, 2024 at 2:00 am
“Oh my God, I can’t find my phone anywhere,” I tell Ryan, my voice rising with panic as I rush around the house and leave various dishrags, socks and other detritus of domestic life in my wake as I ...
- Parti Keadilan Rakyat: Killing me softlyon April 28, 2024 at 2:09 am
PKR’s decline into irrelevancy Murray Hunter Strumming my pain with his fingers Singing my life with his words Killing me softly with his song Killing me softly with his song Telling my whole life ...
- Tems Unveils New Single “Love Me Jeje”on April 27, 2024 at 6:20 am
Nigeria singer Temilade Openiyi, a songwriter popularly known as Tems has released her latest track, “Love Me JeJe,” via Since ’93/RCA Records.
- Killing Me Softly (Cert 18)on April 26, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Killing Me Softly (18 is that most un-British of things: 'an erotic thriller'. Whenever a London film contains kinky sex, there's usually a foreign director at the helm. Presumably they're the ...
- Tems Drops New Track “Love Me JeJe” Ahead of Debut Album Releaseon April 26, 2024 at 4:59 am
Lagos, Nigeria-based singer, songwriter, and producer Tems has released her latest track, "Love Me JeJe," via Since '93/RCA Records. "Love Me JeJe" is the first single from Tems' highly anticipated ...
- When cancer dashed my brother's dreams, it spurred me to follow mine and adopt my daughteron April 24, 2024 at 1:00 am
Kerri McCourt had long thought that she would adopt a child someday. But when her brother was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, McCourt took steps to make the dream come true.
- Tracy Beckerman: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Laughon April 23, 2024 at 3:09 pm
It was the laughter. Well, his laughter … when he’s on a Zoom call. When he’s alone with me, he has a normal laugh. But when he’s on a Zoom call, his laugh suddenly gets thunderously loud ...
- Watch Lauryn Hill perform her hits during son YG Marley’s Coachella seton April 14, 2024 at 5:00 pm
She went on to perform ‘Killing Me Softly’, ‘Fu-Gee-La’ and ‘Ready or Not’ with band member Wyclef Jean for a partial Fugees reunion. The performance also featured surprise guest Busta ...
via Bing News