I-Corps Teams: Pathways to Market of Piezoelectric Elastomer Composites for Additive Manufacturing of Flexible 3D Conformal Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonic Transducer Arrays

I-Corps 团队：用于柔性 3D 共形声发射和超声波换能器阵列增材制造的压电弹性体复合材料的市场之路

• 批准号: 1606755
• 负责人: Jing Wang
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of South Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-15 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1606755&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Teams; Pathways; Market; Piezoelectric

Like every novel technology, piezoelectricity has contributed to important scientific achievements to Acoustic Emission (AE) and ultrasonic sensor technology, but there still are technical limitations that need to be resolved. The concept of the technology proposed originated from the feedbacks from professionals expertizing on structural integrity monitoring in Non-destructive Testing (NDT) industry as well as several discussion with former doctoral students dedicated to relevant research areas. The proposed piezoelectric-nanocompostie based acoustic/ultrasonic transducer array technology has great potential to resolve several of the performance limiting issues. In addition, due to the high cost of traditional sensors and the requirements in terms of sensor volumes, an alternative and more affordable transducer technology is urgently needed for design teams in relevant technology companies. Modern acoustic and ultrasonic sensing technologies are able to supply an enormous amount of information of health conditions of aging civil infrastructure to avoid a catastrophic failure, thereby making an important impact on the public safety and economical investments. The technology proposed will expedite a wider employment of acoustic emission or ultrasonic transducers on objects of unique geometries or in special working conditions, while allowing substantial cost reduction and shortening the design-cycle due to superb adaptability of the piezo-composites processes. Therefore, with the new piezo-nanocomposite technology introduced, it is reasonable to anticipate a marketing expansion in different categories of business, such as NDT provider and wearable medical electronics companies. The key objective of this program is to develop piezoelectric elastomer or thermoplastic nanocomposites that are amenable to additive manufacturing of flexible or 3D conformal transducer array prototypes for detection of acoustic emission or ultrasonic signals. One of the most popular applications relying on the utilization of acoustic emission is to determine if cracks are growing at the interior of a structure or to monitor its degree of deterioration. However, oftentimes, it is very difficult and costly to achieve an accurate or even accessible measurement readings on tested objects because of some certain special technical requirement, e.g. unique geometry or frequency selection. The proposed technology facilitates low-cost volume production of acoustic emission or ultrasonic transducer arrays that are well tailored for structural health monitoring of concrete, steel, and composite structures and rotating machinery. In this I-Corps program a commercial assessment of will be conducted on a new piezo-nanocomposite material technology that enables customized design, molding or additive manufacturing (3D printing) and ease of deployment of a new class of flexible and/or 3D conformal acoustic and ultrasonic transducer arrays.

像每种新型技术一样，压电性为声发射（AE）和超声传感器技术的重要科学成就做出了贡献，但是仍然存在需要解决的技术局限性。提出的技术的概念源自对非破坏性测试（NDT）行业中结构完整性监测专业的专业人士的反馈，以及与专门针对相关研究领域的前博士生的一些讨论。拟议的基于压电 - 纳米构成的原声/超声传感器阵列技术具有解决几个绩效限制问题的巨大潜力。此外，由于传统传感器的高成本和传感器量的要求，迫切需要一种相关技术公司设计团队的替代性和负担得起的传感器技术。现代声学和超声波传感技术能够提供大量的衰老民用基础设施健康状况信息，以避免灾难性的失败，从而对公共安全和经济投资产生重要影响。拟议的技术将加快在独特几何或特殊工作条件下更广泛地使用声发射或超声传感器，同时允许大量成本降低并缩短设计周期，这是由于压电材料的出色适应性而引起的。因此，随着新的压电纳米复合技术的引入，可以预期在不同类别的业务中进行营销扩展，例如NDT提供商和可穿戴医疗电子公司。该程序的关键目的是开发压电弹性体或热塑性纳米复合材料，这些材料可与柔性或3D共形换能器阵列原型的添加剂制造一起检测，以检测声发射或超声信号。依靠声发射利用的最流行的应用之一是确定结构内部的裂缝是否在生长或监测其恶化程度。但是，通常，由于某些特殊的技术要求，例如独特的几何或频率选择。拟议的技术有助于计算量身定制的声发射或超声传感器阵列的低成本量产生，这些阵列适合于混凝土，钢和复合结构以及旋转机械的结构健康监测。在此I-Corps计划中，将对新的压电 - 纳米复合材料技术进行商业评估，该技术可以实现定制的设计，成型或添加剂制造（3D打印），并易于部署新的灵活和/或3D形式的共形声学和超声传输阵列。