2008 has been a year of exciting changes in leadership and policy at the University of Delaware. Patrick Harker completed his first year as UD’s twenty-sixth President, Mark Barteau was appointed Senior Vice Provost for Research and Strategic Initiatives, and Michael Chajes was selected Dean of the College of Engineering after a national search, with Thomas Buchanan serving as Deputy Dean. Clearly, our College of Engineering continues to provide campus leadership, as all four of these leaders have faculty appointments in engineering.

On the national scene, Senator Joseph Biden (D., Del.) was elected Vice President of the United States. A 1965 graduate of UD, Biden has been one of UD-CCM’s most valued advocates over the past two decades, and we thank him and the rest of the Delaware delegation as well as the State of Delaware for their continuing support.

It can be said that along with change comes opportunity, and we believe that changes on both the national and university scenes bode well for the future of CCM. Harker, former Dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, brings credentials as both an engineer and a business leader, and under his leadership UD has ushered in a new era through implementation of a strategic plan designed to propel the University of Delaware forward on the Path to Prominence.

We are extremely excited with the directions in which President Harker is leading UD. Harker has said “that knowledge must be given life in the marketplace,” and he believes that innovation often appears at the “cracks between disciplines.” We couldn’t agree more. At CCM, interdisciplinary research conducted by teams of faculty, professional staff, and students in collaboration with government, industry, and academic partners has been key to innovation, research and educational opportunities, and the acceleration and implementation of new technology into the marketplace. We will continue to build on our strengths and strive to be more successful by promoting entrepreneurship and economic development through our alumni and our government and industrial sponsors.

The Center continues its long tradition of conducting basic and applied research in composites through university-government partnerships. CCM has been an NSF Engineering Research Center or DoD Center of Excellence (ARO, ONR and ARL) continuously since 1985. Our partnership with ARL has been particularly successful in educating the next generation of scientists, engineers, and leaders with strong interdisciplinary skills. This partnership has also facilitated collaborative research in lightweight composite materials and fostered the implementation of these technologies into products.

Our current ARL Materials Center of Excellence focuses on multifunctional composite materials and structures for lightweight vehicle protection. Awarded in May 2006, the program will provide up to $18M of basic research support through 2014. Augmenting the CMR program is the Composites Applied Research and Technology (CART) Program, which was awarded in April 2007 and will provide up to $25M over 5 years to mature promising basic research. Finally, a new Composite Structures Initiative (CSI) Program awarded in June 2007 by TACOM provides funding up to $50M over five years for transferring technology with our industrial partners into composite products.

Industry continues to play a major role in our success. Established almost 30 years ago, our industrial consortium continues to thrive and complement our research with government agencies. During the past two years alone, 90 companies, from small local firms to international corporations, actively participated. Our members have leveraged and applied past and ongoing research to address their current needs, used our models and simulation tools to solve their problems, attended our workshops for training, and hired our graduates while taking advantage of networking and teaming opportunities with CCM and our other government and industry partners. During that period, CCM also strongly supported small business through industrial research programs, facilities sharing, and consultation with our experts. We are quite pleased that during the last 2 years, we have helped our small business partners win 15 SBIR/STTR Phase I and II programs to promote commercialization for their products and economic development for the State of Delaware and the Nation.

International collaborations are becoming increasingly important in this new era of a global economy and knowledge-based partnerships. CCM is internationally recognized for excellence in composites through the accomplishments of our faculty and the success of our alumni. Prof. Tsu-Wei Chou, one of the founders of CCM, has pioneered our international collaborations with universities around the world over his 40 years at UD. Dr. Chou’s scientific accomplishments have drawn dozens of the leading academicians in the world to partner with CCM and work with him. As a testament to his international research stature, the Korean government recently awarded him a major research program in the area of nanotechnology. To promote exchange of basic research with our colleagues around the world, we continue to play a leading role in international conferences such as the First World Conference on 3D Fabrics and Their Applications, held in April 2008 in the United Kingdom, and the 13th U.S. Japan Conference on Composite Materials, held in Tokyo in June 2008. At this meeting, Prof. Chou and I bestowed the CCM Medal of Excellence to Dr. Alan Miller of the Boeing Company and Dr. Takahashi Ishikawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploratory Agency. In addition, TEXCOMP9, an international conference on textile composites, was co-chaired by me and CCM Associate Director Suresh Advani and hosted at the University of Delaware. CCM’s leadership in this area will continue in 2009 with participation in the Second World Conference on 3D Fabrics and Their Applications as well as the 1st Joint Canadian and American Technical Conference. Sponsored by the American Society for Composites and the Canadian Association for Composite Structures and Materials, the latter will be hosted by CCM from September 15-17, 2009, and will include a celebration of the Center’s 35th anniversary.

With this strong foundation of U.S. and international partnerships in place, CCM is well poised to travel the Path to Prominence. With 1) a record $11M of research expenditures in FY08 and long term contracts and commitments to sustain a similar level of activity, 2) a talented and diverse core of faculty, students, and professional researchers sufficient to support current research and take advantage of future opportunities (currently more than 300 researchers are conducting more than 120 ongoing projects), and 3) an infrastructure specifically designed and maintained to accommodate growth, CCM is uniquely positioned for the future. Steps taken in 2008 to position CCM for the future by improving infrastructure capabilities included an 18,000-sq-ft expansion of laboratory space and capabilities at our off-campus Applications and Technology Transfer Laboratory (ATTL). The ATTL adds to the 34,000-sq-ft on-campus facilities at the Composites Manufacturing Science Laboratory and allows CCM to keep up with rapidly growing research and tech transfer programs.

Graduate and undergraduate students distinguished themselves as future leaders in academia and industry by winning numerous national awards for papers, posters, and design competitions. Over 150 graduate and undergraduate students from all of the departments within the College of Engineering and other colleges participated in CCM research programs. In the summer and fall of 2008, nineteen new students started their graduate school careers through opportunities and fellowships offered by CCM.

Jack Gillespie, Jr.
CCM Director

Our plan now is to take our success to the next level and focus on promoting an entrepreneurial environment and creating new businesses and new jobs for the region. As a first step in that direction, we will team with our industrial, state, and academic partners to develop strategies and action plans to move forward into the next phase. Using our nearly 35 years of experience as a foundation and President Harker’s Path to Prominence as our guide, we will develop and
implement new strategies for CCM. It is our expectation that many new opportunities will be presented in this time of change. We will continue to invest in long-term basic and applied research but at the same time create an environment that can lead to new technological breakthroughs and new businesses.

We value the continued support of our existing partners in this effort, and we welcome the participation of new ones. Please contact us if you are interested in talking about taking the next step. After all, the Future is Composites.

CCM Grad Students Win SAMPE Awards

In the Baltimore-Washington SAMPE Chapter’s 14th Annual Student Symposium held on February 11 2009, Gaurav Nilakantan won the second place in the paper category and Conor Keenan won the second place in the poster category. Both received cash prizes, and are doctoral students at CCM. Nilakantan, co-advised by Prof. Gillespie and Prof. Keefe, presented a paper entitled “Novel Multi-scale and Probabilistic Modeling of Flexible Fabrics Under Impact”. Keenan, advised by Prof. Gillespie and co-advised by Dr. Rob Jensen, presented a poster entitled “Damage Tolerance of Thick Section Composites: Development and Characterization of Novel Materials”.

The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is located at
the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD

UD SAMPE Visits Army Research Lab

The University of Delaware's student chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) was recently invited for an eye-opening tour of the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, where 26 undergrads and graduates in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering got the opportunity to see firsthand how the work being done in composite materials at ARL parallels with UD and CCM.

The tour, orchestrated in part by ARL Research Engineers Dr. Travis Bogetti and Dr. Eric Wetzel, served as a follow-up to the Materials Center of Excellence review in February, and gave SAMPE students a look at the many different disciplines in materials processing and composites that are studied and implemented at the Army Research Lab, including (but not limited to) the application of physics and chemistry in composite processing. Wetzel, who received his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from UD, said the goal was to hit on all areas where composites are applied at ARL.

"We spent time talking about fabrication and processing, fundamental materials development, testing and characterization of materials, and a bit about designs and applications," Wetzel said. "The purpose of the SAMPE student group, as it relates to CCM, is to help the students become more informed about the greater composites community — what goes on in industry, academia, and government — to complement what the students learn in the classroom."