Composites

News and Updates

A man in a hard hard is holding a clipboard and looking towards a large wind turbine.

An Early Warning System for Damage in Composite Materials

February 18, 2020

A team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a tool to monitor changes in widely used composite materials known as fiber

Multiscale Polymer Dynamics in Hierarchical Carbon Nanotube Grafted Glass Fiber Reinforced Composites

August 27, 2019

NIST researchers utilized a suite of techniques typically reserved to investigate polymer dynamics and structure in nanocomposites with dispersed fillers to

Assessing the Next-Generation Backing Materials for Body Armor Testing

March 28, 2019

A framework of rheological techniques was developed to evaluate a candidate ballistic witness material developed by the U.S. Army.

Avoiding the Crack of Doom

February 25, 2019

Just as a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, the deformations and fractures that cause catastrophic failure in materials begin with a few

Projects and Programs

Nanotube Metrology

Nanotube metrology improvement is a significant effort in the Particles, Tubes and Colloids project dedicated to improving the measurement methods for, and

zCOMPLETED: Macromolecule and Nanoparticle Composition and Architecture

We develop quantitative methods for the analysis of macromolecules having complex architectures and nanoparticles having organic functionalities. Our approaches

Hierarchical Materials

Nature utilizes a hierarchy of length scales and tiered structure to build lightweight, strong, and tough materials. Engineers look to exploit the advantage of

Nanometrology: Composition and Structure of Nanomaterials

Advances in methods, instrumentation and analysis protocols are developed to enhance measurement science capabilities in nanomaterial elemental and

Publications

Materials Research & Measurement Needs for Ceramics Additive Manufacturing

November 1, 2020

Author(s)

Andrew J. Allen, Igor Levin, Suzanne E. Witt

We report on a recent workshop dedicated to additive manufacturing (AM) of ceramics that was held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Role of Uncertainty in the Durability of Composite Material Systems

August 17, 2020

Author(s)

Jeffrey T. Fong, Nathanael A. Heckert, James J. Filliben

This paper is a chapter invited by the editor of a book to be published by Elsevier in 2020. The title of the book is "Durability of Composite Systems," and the

Accelerated Weathering Parameters for Some Aromatic Engineering Thermoplastics. Part 2: Polycarbonate copolymers, polyarylate and ABS

August 16, 2020

Author(s)

Li Piin Sung, James E. Pickett, Olga Kuvshinnikova, Brett Ermi

Understanding the responses of materials to environmental variables is essential for performing meaningful accelerated weathering and service life prediction

The Impact and Fate of Graphene Oxide in Graphene Oxide/Polymer Nanocomposites Exposed to Ultraviolet Irradiation

August 11, 2020

Author(s)

David G. Goodwin, Trinny Lai, Yadong Lyu, Chen Yuan Lu, Alejandro Campos, Vytautas Reipa, Tinh Nguyen, Li Piin Sung

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation, heat and moisture can lead to polymer degradation outdoors but the effect of graphene oxide (GO) nanofiller incorporation on this

Software

Custom Lifetime Imaging Platform (CLIP)

CLIP is an analysis program for fluorescence lifetime images. It provides the user with the ability to fit or calculate the phasor plots for lifetime decays

Tools and Instruments

Picture of the sample area of the NIST X-ray Adsorbtion Fine Structure instrument, with NIST scientist Bruce Ravel, located at the National Synchrotron Light Source.

X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS)

The XAFS station uses a tunable, monochromatic, and moderately high energy X-ray beam (4.5 keV to 23.5 keV) for X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements. The

High Throughput (Combinatorial) Screening Tool for Characterization of Thin Film Thermoelectrics as a Function Temperature

High-throughput (combinatorial) metrologies have evolved as a useful approach to rapidly determine the composition-structure-property relationships for novel

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectrometer

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy uses positrons to probe material defects/voids/free volume at the sub-nm scale. The general working principle is

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique in which the vibrational modes of the molecules comprising a material of interest

Awards

2017 American Physical Society Fellow

APS Fellowships are a distinct honor given after extensive review by the Fellowship committee of the appropriate APS division, topical group...

image of a 3D volume reconstruction of a forest of carbon nanotubes (CNT) embedded in epoxy

Natarajan Wins FEI Image Award

Bharath Natarajan, a NIST Associate from Georgetown University working on the 3D imaging of carbon and cellulose nanofibers, within the...