Dr. Jack Weitsman:
UT Department of Mechanical, Aerospace Biomedical Engineering
New lightweight composite materials for the automobile industry's energy-savings program must be durable enough to withstand extreme temperature fluctuations, sustained mechanical loads and repeated impacts. Lightweight materials designed to withstand prolonged exposure to salt water are attractive to the U.S. Navy since they enhance the stability of ships and buoyancy of submersibles. But, unless these materials are inexpensive, quick and easy to manufacture, they'll never make it in the industry.
Jack Weitsman designs methods that evaluate the durability of new, lightweight composites; their stiffness and strength; their ability to deform and bounce back from repeated stress.
Using the interplay between mechanical testing and mathematical prediction, Weitsman develops methods to determine just how much stress a material can endure before it will fail. Automobile manufacturers use these predictions to decide if a material is suitable for the usual 15-year life expectancy of a vehicle. In 1997 he played a key role in predicting the behavior of a urethane reinforced glass-fiber composite representative of a new class of materials. While the earliest materials were not suitable for the intended application, alternate composites of the same class are being considered presently for the production of engine hoods, pickup beds and car doors.
Ceramic materials, while almost impervious to the extreme heat from aerospace engines, are, by themselves, too brittle to be practical for engine parts. Weitsman's theoretical and experimental studies of ceramic-fiber/ceramic matrix composites have helped the Air Force better understand how ceramic fibers might enhance that material's ability to be stretched without breaking.
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