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Propose a non-metallic, fatigue-resistant, material for cyclic loading
Challenge Type: math & sciences
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$1,600
top 50%
32
submissions
DONE
87 months ago

As transportation and mobility industries move to make their products increasingly efficient, new products often eschew heavy metal parts for lighter weight alternatives such as plastics and polymers. In addition to decreasing weight and improving operating efficiency, moving metallic parts to alternative materials can also result in faster, more flexible, and efficient manufacturing, decrease cost, increase corrosion resistance.

The shift away from metal parts is often seamless, but there are many parts utilized in the transportation and mobility industries that are subjected to harsh conditions such as high strain and heavy loads. In these cases it is more challenging to find candidate replacement materials able to match or exceed the performance of metallic parts. The company is seeking novel non-metallic materials that are fatigue resistant and able to operate under high rate cyclic loading. The material should be compatible with traditional injection molding processes and/or other high speed manufacturing processes. The material should also exhibit low hysteresis.

Deliverables

Part I: Qualities of your Material

Ideally the material you propose would meet all or most of the following criteria:

- Operate at ~5% cyclic strain at ~10Hz with occasional spikes to ~10% strain.

- Possess high fatigue resistance (>10^7 cycles) under operating conditions.

- Have a tensile modulus on the order of ~1500-3500 MPa with a yield strain >10%.

- Glass transition temperature 80°C

- Melt temperature > 140°C.

- Good creep resistance under dynamic and static loading conditions within the elastic limits of the material (below yield point).

It will be great if your material can also meet these wants:
- Bondable to various substrates either directly or by use of a suitable adhesion promoter and/or adhesive.

- Evidence of fatigue property a plus.

- Be environmentally stable (UV, aging, water, oil, etc.) and environmentally acceptable.

- Permitted under environmental laws

- Have a scalable process capable of making in the 10’s of tons per year.

- Be cost effective

Please do not consider the following options:
- Metallic solutions

- Structural Composites

Part II: Proposing your new material (what to submit):
1. Provide a description of your material (word, .PDF, or PPT preferred)

2. Provide supporting references

3. (Optional) Include any images, videos, or other visuals that may be helpful.

If your submission does not meet all of the criteria, that’s not preferred but can still be ok!

    Submissions will be graded on the following criteria:
  • Meets Deliverables
  • Creativity
  • Clarity
Reward Tiers
Top 10%
will share $1,000
Next 15%
will share $400
Next 25%
will share $200
Actual individual rewards will be based on the total number of eligible solutions.
Leaderboard
$250.00 Tarun Jha University of Florida
$250.00 ANAS ELSABAGH University of Waterloo
$250.00 Miles White University of South Florida
$250.00 Timothy Staat University of Missouri - Columbia
$100.00 Archit Nandi University of Florida
$100.00 Siranjeevi D Columbia University
$100.00 Pedro M University of Providence
$100.00 Dave Cisek
$25.00 Marwan Ahmed German University in Cairo
$25.00 Oscar Wong University of Illinois
$25.00 Jesse York Texas A&M University
$25.00 Anurag Vemula National Institute of Technology Trichy
$25.00 Koosha Nassiri Nazif Stanford University
$25.00 Betty Gao University of Toronto
$25.00 Sangi Rama The Ohio State University
$25.00 Shashwat Kirti Keshri All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal
Submission questions


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