GOALI: Behavior of Materials from Natural Cellulose Fibers and Plant Resins for Automotive and Other Applications

这个资助机会学术联络与工业（GOALI）项目与福特汽车公司关注的机械性能的纳米级纤维的复合材料中包含的合成和天然衍生树脂的木本和草本植物来源。这些材料的制造、表征和力学研究将在大学和工业合作伙伴的设施中联合进行。根据以前的研究，这些材料预计具有明显的减振能力，并在某些冲击条件下表现良好。这些材料的潜在应用是在公共基础设施领域，它们可以用于能量耗散系统，如护栏和安全地板。交通运输业是生物基材料的潜在主要用户，因为其应用范围广泛，资源消耗和产品周转量巨大。运输相关的应用包括外部车身面板、内部能量吸收材料和保险杠能量增强件。纳米纤维素价格低廉，可广泛获得，并且可以取代传统填料中使用的石油。纤维素将从木质和大豆中试验。由于大豆在美国是一种过剩的作物，工业用途支持了国家的农民。该项目的其他更广泛的影响包括大量的推广活动，目标领域以外的潜在应用，如生物工程，以及REU学生团队，GSRA和福特工程师的教育。该项目的目标是通过研究计划创造优化的纤维素纳米复合材料，包括复杂的制造技术，复合纳米结构的有限元建模，振动，粘弹性和速率相关的本构测试。目标是调整材料的纳米结构以产生特定的宏观特性。在初步的模拟中，已经发现，生物复合材料的材料纳米结构的动态响应可以受益于在纳米尺度上的应变率的区域梯度的控制。这一结果的一个衍生物是抑制局部应力集中，往往是复合材料中的动态断裂起始的网站。这项研究可能会导致新的纳米复合材料，是很好地优化动态应用。先进的制造技术将推动当前最先进的功能化技术，以改善纳米纤维素和普通基质聚合物的相容性。一套完整的动态力学数据将导致材料，以及阻尼模型，这将是有用的其他研究人员。从建模的结论可以指示如何最好地构建纳米结构，以实现特定的性能特性，如阻尼，蠕变，抗冲击性和能量耗散。

This Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) project with Ford Motor Company concerns the mechanical behavior of composites of nanometer-sized fibers from woody and herbaceous sources contained in synthetic and naturally derived resins. Research on the manufacture, characterization and mechanics of these materials will be jointly conducted at both the university and industrial partner's facilities. Based on previous research, the materials are expected to have pronounced ability to reduce vibration and to perform well under some impact conditions. Potential applications of the materials are in the public infrastructural area where they could be used in energy dissipation systems such as guard rails and safety flooring. Transportation industries are potential major users of bio-based materials due to the wide diversity of applications and the magnitude of resource consumption and product turnover. Transportation related applications include exterior vehicle body panels, interior energy absorbing material, and bumper energy reinforcements. Nanocellulose is inexpensive, widely available and can displace petroleum used in conventional fillers. Cellulose will be trialed from woody and soy sources. Since soybeans are an excess crop in the United States, industrial uses bolster the nation's farmers. Other broader impacts of the project include a large number of outreach activities, potential applications outside of the target field such as in bioengineering, and the education of a team of REU students, a GSRA and a Ford engineer.The objective of the project is to create optimized cellulose nanocomposites via a research plan including sophisticated manufacturing techniques, finite element modeling of the composite nanostructure, and, vibration, viscoelastic and rate dependent constitutive testing. A goal is to tune the nanostructure of the materials to yield specific macroscopic characteristics. In preliminary modeling, it has been found that the dynamic response of material nanostructure of biocomposites can benefit from control of regional gradients of strain rate at the nanoscale. A ramification of this result is the suppression of local stress concentrations that are often the sites of dynamic fracture initiation in composites. The research could lead to novel nanocomposites that are well optimized for dynamic applications. Sophisticated manufacturing will advance current state-of-the-art functionalization techniques to improve the compatibility of nanocellulose and common matrix polymers. A full set of dynamic-mechanical data will result for the materials, as well as a model for damping, that would be useful to other researchers. The conclusions from the modeling can indicate how to best construct nanostructure to achieve particular performance characteristics, such as damping, creep, impact resistance and energy dissipation.