NSF Award
2320690
This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award supports the acquisition of a mechanical testing instrument to enable new research and training efforts at The University of Tulsa and its collaborators. This custom Psylotech µTS instrument is a unique and highly capable platform for advanced mechanical testing. It delivers more than 350 pounds of dynamic force, yet weighs only 11 pounds and fits inside an electron microscope. Additionally, it can deliver more than 10 mechanical loading and unloading cycles per second, while heating samples up to 1600°C (hot enough to melt iron). This instrument will catalyze research efforts at The University of Tulsa and provide the highest temperature capacity for mechanical testing in the state of Oklahoma. Experiments with the instrument will unite multiple disciplines, enabling advancements in lightweight metals for fuel-efficient vehicles and airplanes, improvements in high-temperature composites for hypersonic flight and space systems, insights into human evolution and past climates through archaeological teeth, and illumination of prehistoric human behaviors from anthropological traces in stone tools. Undergraduate students will be engaged with research using this instrument through the Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge program. There are also outreach plans involving lectures and demonstrations at the Gilcrease Museum, university and public libraries, primary and secondary schools, and events hosted by the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance.<br/><br/>This instrument will serve as an interdisciplinary resource to investigate thermal and mechanical effects on a diverse range of materials. For example, the instrument will help probe the mechanisms of the initiation, propagation, and coalescence of transverse microcracks that lead to delamination and failure in high-temperature carbon/carbon (C/C) composites, including C/C composites synthesized at Tulsa with vascular/fluid channels. Additionally, the µTS instrument will enable in-situ observations under combined heating and mechanical loading to study residual stresses after isothermal solidification from a transient liquid phase metal surface treatment process that was developed at Tulsa. The instrument will also strengthen collaborations and catalyze new research opportunities through high-resolution scanning electron microscope digital image correlation (SEM-DIC) that couples with the high-rate in-situ fatigue cycling of the µTS. Furthermore, the µTS will help answer questions of anthropological and archaeological importance. <br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Major Instrumentation Research Program (MRI), the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
