CAREER: Multi-Scale and Multi-Disciplinary Aspects of Indentation
Project Information
Funding Information
| Country | USA |
| Anticipated Total Funding | $399,614.00 |
| Annual Funding | $79,922.80 |
| Funding Source | NSF |
| Funding Mechanism | |
| Funding Sector | |
| Start Year | 2005 |
| Anticipated End Year | 2010 |
Abstract/Summary
This research plan involves cross-disciplinary applications of instrumented indentation to the investigation of elastic-plastic deformation in a number of inorganic and biological materials systems of increasing visibility and fundamental importance to the engineering and physiological communities, and spanning nano- to macro-scopic size scales. The power of indentation as a scientific tool lies primarily in its experimental simplicity, due to the minimal specimen preparation involved. However, interpretation of results is non-trivial and key to successful analysis are sufficient analytical modeling and supplementary observation. In this plan, indentation will be used to develop constitutive behavior of three ‘testbed’ systems: i) rapidly quenched small-volume structures on substrates, ii) carbon nanotube arrays on substrates, and iii) lung parenchyma. Academic, industrial and/or clinical collaborators have been identified to add perspective and disseminate information. Efforts are planned to develop new interdisciplinary research courses for university, and practical and pre-collegiate training programs for K-12 students.
