Polymer Tech Curbs Engineering Failures

A collaborative team of scientists co-led by the Simon research group at ASU in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Southern Mississippi, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Army Corps of Engineers developed a new material that provides new information about how materials respond to impact at high velocity.

The study, published in Nature Communications, shows how a polymer containing mechanophores, molecules that illuminate under large mechanical force, can visually record the material’s response to high-speed projectile impacts. The mechanophores captured subsurface distortions in the material that were previously impossible to access. Integrating molecular-level interactions with advanced imaging, scientists can visualize the formation of Mach cones-acoustic waves traveling faster than the speed of sound in the material.

The team introduced molecular reporters that light up when the projectile’s speed exceeds the speed of sound in the material, like the boom that occurs when a jet fighter goes supersonic. The work combines heavy computational efforts with advanced analytical methods developed at NIST to evaluate the aftermath of the impact.

A microscopic gun was used to shoot microprojectiles at materials, and ultrafast cameras and advanced microscopy were used to get some critical information about the energy absorbed and how it is transmitted through the material.

The work could provide deeper insights into various impulsive events, including mild traumatic brain injuries, cold spray additive manufacturing, or hypervelocity impacts in space.