Sponsor Keynote Presentations

Keynote Title:

Basic Research Thrusts in Multifunctional Materials & Microsystems: Air Force Perspective

Keynote Abstract:

Two major drivers governing the development of new Defense systems are the reduction of weight/volume and the acquisition of special functionality (e.g. power harvesting and storage, structural health monitoring, autonomic damage mitigation, thermal management, radio signal processing). Traditionally, these two issues are addressed separately, resulting in incremental improvements in monofunctional materials that carry mechanical load or only permit specific functional ability.

The current initiative is aiming at dramatic improvements in system-level efficiency by designing “multifunctional” load bearing structures with integrated specific functionality and by developing “multifunctional” materials that inherently possess the capacity to simultaneously handle both specific function(s) and structural mechanical load.