Development of Smart Structures Employing Novel Melt Spun Piezoelectric Fibers

Functionally smart materials, which have to ability to perform both sensing and actuating operations, are being developed to perform many aircraft type of control events. Smart materials, fabricated suing "continuous ferroelectric fibers," are being consider for full flight control of subsonic missiles, as the servoactuator system, specifically, and for active aerodynamic surface controls, generally. Other applications forsmart ferroelectric sensors and actuators include space exploration, air and ground transportation, health care, and consumer electronics. This Phase I proposal will incorpoerate piezoelecric powders to fabricate "continuous ferroelectric fibers" that can then be processed to produce structural shapes conducive to controlliing aerodynamic surfaces as smart materials. Mechanical and electrical testing of these prototype smart materialswill demonstrate the feasibility of the overall concept. Phase I success will allow future iteration of both macro shape changes andmicro architectural fiber orientation changes in order to optimize the desired properties and facilitate low cost manufacturing. The processing technology proposed in this Phase I is based on the low cost, flaw tolerant, Fibrous Monolithic Processing Technology, currently under development through an ARPA University Research Contract to produce advanced ceramics structures that "fail gracefully" through a micro structure trademarked as Ceramic Wood. The University of Michigan, Advanced Ceramics Research, and Williams International are currently developing this FM technology, respectively, as materials researcher, component fabricator, and product end-user.