Materials

Below is a small sample of the numerous studies IDA's Studies and Analyses Center conducts in the area of materiels.

Morphing Material and Structural Systems

Morphing systems are vehicles that attain superior or novel performance through the ability to tailor their state – whether physical, electromagnetic, or mechanical – to the operational environment and missions they are performing. Materials that can change their physical properties – such as stiffness, thermal conductivity, texture, and color – are required for these morphing vehicles.

IDA has played a central role in identifying material needs across a broad range of military applications, including aircraft, ground systems and robots, missiles, propulsion and inlets, and space systems. We organized and hosted two workshops for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to assess the state-of-the-art of new materials and devices whose properties can be rapidly changed by application of energy sources such as electromagnetic radiation, light (photons), magnetic fields, or electric fields. Output from the two workshops has contributed significantly to developing technical specifications and project plans for further DoD-sponsored research on morphing materials.

Morphing Materials and Structural Systems

The graph shows one example of the competing material properties that may be addressed.  The graph, developed jointly by IDA and the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials Directorate, plots material relative stiffness, or Young's modulus, versus the recoverable elongation as a percent of specimen length. It clearly shows that morphing is in a new regime with respect to these two material properties.  The heavy dashed line represents the practical limit for today's materials.