Bio-inspired Processing of Composite Films having Negative-Stiffness for Mechanical Damping

The proposed STTR program would develop nanocomposite structural materials with negative mechanical constitutive properties and extreme mechanical damping. Such negative stiffness materials would have direct applications in the low-cost passive damping of unwanted vibrations in aircraft and space structures, as well as in novel actuator and sensor devices. During the Phase I STTR program, NanoSonic would work with the Center for Intelligent Materials, Systems and Structures at Virginia Tech to design, synthesize and evaluate the constitutive properties of thin and thick film nanocomposite test materials with anticipated negative stiffness behavior. These materials would be formed through electrostatic self-assembly (ESA) processing, which involves the sequential adsorption of multiple molecular precursors from aqueous colloidal suspensions. This offers the unique ability to control short and long-range structural order in such composites at the molecular level. Specifically, by combining negative-stiffness and positive-stiffness nanoclusters into nanocomposite test articles, where the relative volume percentage ratios of the clusters in the material are controlled through variations in the ESA process, parametric structure-property relationships versus temperature will be established. This information would be used during Phase II to design, fabricate and evaluate bulk structural components having desired negative stiffness properties.