FEATURE: Next-Generation Actuators/Sensors Comprised of Functional Nanomaterials

FRIDAY FEATURE

Research Centre USA

1) Broader View: Making Small Motors With a Big Impact

Dr. Jalili is using nanotechnology, the science of building and manipulating materials as small as a single molecule, to help create miniature devices that cause movement, such as miniature motors, micro-scale robotic systems and biomedical applications that could assist with surgery and more effective drug delivery. Dr. Jalili is creating these new structures from nanotubes, tiny, tube-shaped carbon or other compositions, which have the natural ability to move when energized.  Dr. Jalili earned his Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in 1998 before joining Clemson's Mechanical Engineering Department in August 2000.

It’s harvest time. Prof. Nader Jalili at Clemson University is working on new materials that harvest energy. Piezoelctric materials shake when they receive a voltage and produce a voltage when shaken. The associate professor of mechanical engineering has designed new materials, based on the same principles that make quartz watches possible, that could be used to make jogging suits or shoe inserts that store energy as a person runs ­ or used to crank out tunes from an MP3 player.

2) Narrower View: Smarter Tires

"Smarter" tires, embedded with piezoelectric materials, could someday autonomously sense and respond to changing road conditions and provide tire shape modulation.
 

Nader Jalili

Clemson University