Office of Naval Research grant fuels efforts to improve safety, reduce manufacturing costs of aircraft composite parts

Composite testingComposite materials are widely used in manufacturing aircraft and other applications where lightweight, super-strong materials are prized, but testing those materials for defects and predicting where defects will occur remains difficult. Andrew Makeev, a professor of aerospace engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington, will use a $181,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research to purchase an ARES-G2 integrated axial-torsional platform that will allow his team to better understand material properties including defect formation in composites as a function of