Office of Innovative Materials

Members of the office of Innovative Materials invent and develop new material concepts for use by the Space and Missiles System Center and by the technical community in general. Funding for this work has been provided by the Aerospace IR&D program and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Scanning electron micrograph showing cross-section of nylon extruded machine. These "z-shaped" machines are one of the many shapes that can be tailored and optimized for the intended application.

Machine Augmented Composites (MAC)

Traditional composites consist of many small fibers or particulates embedded in a matrix. The composite will be stiff or strong because it contains fibers that have these inherent qualities. We are making composites by embedding many small simple machines in a matrix. Simple machines are, by definition, "designed to modify the application of force." Similar to the way traditional composites take on the characteristics of the fibers, Machine augmented composites take on the characteristics of the machines. The simple machines modify the internal forces in the material allowing the composite to have unique properties. (See About MAC for more information)