REU SITE: Summer Internships in Composites for Extreme Performance

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BROADER SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT:The goal of this REU Site project, supported by the Division of Engineering Education and Centers, is to foster a new generation of diverse researchers who will engineer new composite materials. These new materials will provide high performance in extreme environments including the need to manage high thermal loads for fire resistant clothing and provide impact resistance for body armor and police protection. Student interns will be paired with individual research mentors on the NCSU Centennial Campus and will live on the campus for a nine-week summer training period. The interns will attend weekly interactive research training seminars and participate in two site visits to advanced composite industries in North Carolina. The student interns will be better trained to be competitive in research communication and have the relevant technical skills needed to meet future research challenges. Recruitment of the student interns will focus on underrepresented minorities through collaboration with two HBCU universities and recent veterans through collaboration with Craven Community College which serves a large number of veterans and active military.PROJECT DESCRIPTION:The goal of this REU Site project, supported by the Division of Engineering Education and Centers, is to foster a new generation of diverse researchers who will engineer new composite materials, by providing the research and communication tools for them to be successful. Composite materials are operating in more extreme environments including the need to manage high thermal loads for fire resistant clothing and provide impact resistance for body armor and police protection. The project will expose the student interns to the design of composite materials specifically tailored for extreme environments, their specialized fabrication, performance testing, and methods to introduce multi-functionality through nano-technology. To recruit the student interns, the PIs will collaborate with three universities and a community college for focused recruiting of underrepresented groups, along with broad advertising to peer institutions.