PatIntNews

Three professors of University of New Mexico are leading a research program to develop blast resistant composite materials. The squad is investigating ways to alter the structure of materials to evolve a better building material that would be corrosion resistant and particularly tolerant to blast.The research will be conducted in the School of Engineering's new structural lab, and the mechanical engineering laboratories.

"I don't know what kind of material we will end up with. As you change its microstructure, is it concrete at all?" asked Mahmoud Taha, associate professor and Regents' Lecturer in civil engineering. Assistant professors of mechanical engineering Marwan Al-Haik and Claudia Luhrs, national lab professor Jonathan Philips and graduate engineering students, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Texas as San Antonio are also engaged with the project.

Focus is on growing nanostructures that suit particular requirements like improving the flexibility of concrete structures so that when hit by a pressure wave from a blast it does not crumbles but cracks.

"People in the last century used to design structures and use existing materials to build them, but we are going one step further, asking why do we need to use existing materials? Can we design our own?" Taha said. The envisioned blast resistant composite materials would be able to survive indefinitely instead of deteriorating in 30 or 40 years.

The Army Research Office is providing $800,000. Apart from this Defense Threat Reduction Agency and National Science Foundation has granted $1.12 million and $230,000 for exploring other areas of the core problem.