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Advanced Materials

Solving tomorrow’s technological challenges through the discovery of novel materials and manipulating properties to make promising materials stronger and smarter

Close up of hands polishing a materials sample with a cotton swab before placing it under a microscope in a IAMM lab.
William Henken, a Volkswagen Doctoral Fellow, runs an automated filament winder manufacturing glass fiber reinforced polymeric (GFRP) composites inside an IAMM lab on December 07, 2022.
Professor Dayakar Penumadu and doctoral candidate Hannah Maeser work in UT's Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility.

The development of advanced materials is rarely the unexpected discovery of a diamond in the rough. More commonly, it results from intentionally manipulating a material’s composition and processing parameters to achieve the desired structure at the appropriate scale to produce the desired performance. 

Given that the parameter space for advanced material exploration is infinite, successful endeavors require a clear understanding of foundational principles that span several disciplines, including chemistry, physics, and various engineering fields. Entrepreneurship and innovation are necessary to translate fundamental research to applied technologies.

Doctoral candidate Hannah Maeser works with a Volkswagen liftgate during a thermal test in the Science & Engineering Research Facility.

Our Approach To Innovation

Advanced Materials research at UT begins with multi-disciplinary teams collaborating to identify opportunities for advanced material development. A highly integrated experimental and multiscale modeling/simulation approach is employed to engineer a broad range of materials with a desired micro- or nano-structure. 

Specific areas of interest include dynamics of complex fluids, such as polymeric and biological fluids, fiber suspensions, interfacial properties, and colloidal systems as well as the synthesis of functional nanoparticles and thin films.

Additionally, UT is highly focused on the development and prototyping of advanced fiber reinforced plastics and composites. Core competencies are in product and process development, characterization, modeling and simulation, and the nondestructive evaluation of advanced thermoset and thermoplastic composites.

Highlights

Recycling Wind Turbine Blades

UT is developing a new technology for the large-scale recycling of wind turbine blades into new recycled composites. This technology recovers the glass fiber from reinforced polymer composites and allows the recycled fiber to be reused in new composite applications such as vehicle lightweighting, other renewable energy systems components, and performance sports equipment.

Learn more about the technology.

FRP Composite Bridge

UT researchers and engineering students worked with industry partners to develop and install a new high-tech bridge in north central Tennessee, equipped with a fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite material bridge deck embedded with fiber optic sensors to monitor and provide critical performance and safety data.

Read about the composite bridge.

A composite bridge over a creek in Morgan County, Tennessee.
An orange liftgate stands in front of a blue banner.

Lighter Liftgate for Volkswagen

UT researchers collaborated with Volkswagen engineers to design and manufacture a liftgate made of a novel composite for the Volkswagen Atlas, which reduces weight by 35 percent and lowers the company’s investment cost.

Learn about the liftgate.

Finding Flaws in Rubber

UT researchers partnered with Eastman Chemical Company to develop a new method to ensure consistency and quality in rubber manufacturing which is likely to show real-world impact on material sustainability and durability for products such as car tires.

Discover the new flaw detection method.

Facilities & Initiatives

Through a longstanding relationship with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, IACMI–The Composites Institute, and a multitude of public and private partners, UT is at the forefront of the advancement of composite materials and their applications to both science and industry.

  • Center for Materials Processing 
  • Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at ORNL 
  • Eastman Innovation Center
  • Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility
  • IACMI—The Composites Institute
  • MABE Maker Lab
  • DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL
  • Polymer Composites Additive Manufacturing Lab
  • Spallation Neutron Source at ORNL 
  • Shull Wollan Center
A student uses a water cutter in a lab inside the Dougherty Engineering Building on March 10, 2020. Photo by Steven Bridges/University of Tennessee.

Talent

  • David Anderson.

    David Anderson

    Associate Dean for Research, Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine

    Biochemistry and cell biology, animal production, veterinary sciences, biomedical engineering, biomaterials, chemical engineering, food sciences, materials engineering, regenerative medicine, clinical sciences, pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences

  • Suresh Babu.

    Sudarsanam Babu

    UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Advanced Manufacturing

    Computational materials science, fundamental issues in non–equilibrium phase transformations, application of in-situ neutron and synchrotron diffraction tools, laser surfacing for improvement of structural and biomaterial surfaces, novel phase transformation concepts to join nanostructured materials

  • Brett Compton.

    Brett Compton

    Associate Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering

    Developing new high-performance materials for additive manufacturing technologies, printable fiber-reinforced polymer and ceramic matrix composites, multi-material hybrid structures

  • Mark Dadmun.

    Mark Dadmun

    Professor, Chemistry

    Organic photovoltaics and conjugated polymers, nanocomposites and block copolymers, lignin and renewable polymers

  • Computer illustration of a human wearing a lab coat with a power T the pocket.

    Madhu Dhar

    Research Professor, Large Animal Clinical Sciences

    Advancing regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, cell-based therapies for treatment of disease

  • Chad Duty.

    Chad Duty

    Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering

    Additive manufacturing of polymer and composite structures, new material development, melt flow characterization, optimizing process-structure-property relationships, tooling applications for large-scale additive manufacturing

  • Bradley Jared.

    Bradley Jared

    Associate Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering

    Additive manufacturing, precision engineering, design of precision electro-mechanical systems and mechanisms, machine learning for manufacturing processes, metrology processes, opto-mechanics and opto-electronics, design and process optimization, hierarchical material design, material process-structure- property relationships, meso manufacturing

  • Peter Liaw.

    Peter Liaw

    Professor, Materials Science & Engineering

    Mechanical behavior, fatigue and fracture behavior, nondestructive-evaluation, and neutron/synchrotron studies of advanced materials, including bulk-metallic glasses, nano-structural materials, high-entropy alloys, superalloys, steels, and intermetallics.

  • Katherine Page.

    Katharine Page

    Assistant Professor, Materials Science & Engineering

    New insights into complex functional materials, both bulk and nano, through advances in structural characterization, ferroelectric oxides, energy conversion materials, nanoscale catalysts

  • Dayakar Penumadu.

    Dayakar Penumadu

    Peebles Professor, IAMM Chair of Excellence, Civil & Environmental Engineering

    Carbon fiber reinforced polymeric composites and sandwich structures, environmental degradation, and multi-scale mechanics, multi-axial stress-strain-time behavior of multi-phase and granular materials, non-invasive characterization and residual stress using neutron and x-ray tomography and diffraction, direct numerical simulations and porous media

  • Claudia Rawn.

    Claudia Rawn

    Professor, Materials Science & Engineering

    Materials engineering, macromolecular and materials chemistry, atomic/molecular physics, inorganic chemistry, neutron and X-Ray powder diffraction, small molecule crystallography, ceramic synthesis, structure/property relations

  • Orlando Rios.

    Orlando Rios

    Assistant Professor, Materials Science & Engineering

    Materials thermodynamics, metal and polymer additive manufacturing, alloy development, electrochemistry, electromagnetic processing, experimental thermodynamics, microstructure and property relationships, neutron and high energy x-ray diffraction, solidification

  • Tony Schmitz.

    Tony Schmitz

    Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering

    Manufacturing, machining, vibrations, measurement, uncertainty analysis

See all advanced materials faculty

Institute for Advanced Materials & Manufacturing

2641 Osprey Vista Way
Knoxville, TN 37920
865-974-8428
iamm@utk.edu

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996
865-974-1000

The flagship campus of the University of Tennessee System and partner in the Tennessee Transfer Pathway.

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