'Morphing Metals'

"Imagine seeing a bullet shot through a sheet of material, only to have the material instantly "heal" behind the bullet! Remember, this is not science fiction. Self-healing materials actually exist, and LaRC scientists are working to unravel their secrets. What we did at NASA-Langley was basically dissect that material to answer the question, 'how does it do that?'" McGowan said. "By doing so, we can actually get down to computational modeling of these materials at the molecular level. Once we understand the material's behavior at that level, then we can create designer 'smart' materials," --- Anna McGowan, Program Manager for the Morphing Project at NASA's Langley Research Center.

Does the above quote sound familiar? Metal that is cut, only to 'heal' itself? We have all become accustomed to hearing about technological advances that were initially spearheaded by secret military research projects.

The Atom Bomb was developed during the Second World War amid incredibly tight security, and the first most people knew about Stealth technology was when the bat-like fighter-bombers were being rolled out of the hangers to attack the military apparatus of Iraq.

Many of us are expecting a new dawn of technological wizardry to make its debut appearance during the current ‘war on terrorism’.

Amazing advances are being made in the development of new metal alloys. These alloys have remarkable characteristics, in that they will change shape upon the application of an electric current or magnetic field. They change shape, or ‘morph’ as the researchers prefer to say, rapidly and with some considerable force. They are termed ‘compact hybrid actuators’, a mouthful of engineering jargon, so we would prefer to call them ‘living metals’. Why? Because these alloys incorporate advanced nano-technology that is designed to enable them to mimic living systems in their versatility and dynamism.

The list of potential applications seems endless, and the U.S. military is funding a variety of related research programs exploring the full range of options. Self-healing wings that flex and react like living organisms, versatile bombers that double as agile jet fighters, and swarms of tiny unmanned aircraft are just a few of the science-fiction-like possibilities that these next-generation technologies could make feasible in the decades ahead.

Just so that you don’t think this all sounds like drawing-board ideas being dreamt up by some egg-head think-tank, there is a considerable body of evidence to show that the testing stage for some of these alloys has already taken place.

This technology is being incorporated into prototype applications right now. These include morphing aeroforms in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and fighter aircraft, morphing rotor-blades in helicopters, in-flight navigation, guidance and control systems for small missiles, satellite technology (especially with respect to optical systems), and sonar-absorbing materials for submarines. If you watch the video animation above, you will see that a plane with flappable wings is one of the goals of this project.

These active and complex metal alloys are being designed to be used in ‘exo-skeletons’ to be worn by battle-field soldiers, creating ‘Robo-cop’ style advances in G.I. Joe’s combat performance.

The U.S. Military are currently inviting applications for between $30-40m of research grants to find ways of facilitating neural transmission between the soldier’s brain waves and his living metal exo-skeleton. They are not expecting mere ‘incremental’ progress, either. The projects are 3-year terms in length, and many of them are nearing completion or are already accomplished. There is a palpable sense of urgency to this research, and we think this reflects the rapid advances being made in these projects.

The research is being conducted by a number of private-sector aerospace consortiums (including the likes of Boeing, M.I.T., Moog and Lockheed Martin), as well as several university departments in receipt of grants from the U.S. Military. (Read More ...)