MAE SEMINAR

Ultralow-Binder-Content Composite and Its Application

Yu Qiao, UCSD Deptartment of Structural Engineering
October 3, 2018, 11:00am - 12:00pm, EBU II Room 479

ABSTRACT:

Ultralow-binder-content composite (UBCC) is a composite material with the binder content less than 5%, much lower than the matrix contents in regular particulate or fiber reinforced composites (typically <30%). Recently, we developed a fast and scalable processing technique of UBCC. The produced composite material consisted of ~96% filler particles and ~4% polymer binder. It is a transformative green cement that can compete against ordinary Portland cement (OPC) in all the aspects: it is cheaper and stronger than typical steel-reinforced concrete; its processing will be much more energy-efficient and much lower-emission, targeting at the large construction materials market (2~4 billion tons/year). The material production circumvents the issues of high cost or low performance that hindered the application of many other conventional green cements.

Our key technology is the quasi-static mixing (QSM) process, specifically developed to handle the ultralow binder content. Through a “one-step” high-pressure compaction, the binder phase is broken apart and self-assembled into a polymer micro-agglomeration (PMA) network. Thus, the system redundancy is minimized and the binder is fully utilized for load-carrying. We envision that, in addition to construction materials, this technique may have broad applications in waste carbon utilization, energy materials, space exploration structures, advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing, among others.

BIO:

Professor Yu Qiao received his B.S. degree in Applied Mechanics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1994, his M.S. degree in Materials Science from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997, and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002. He was an assistant professor of civil engineering in the University of Akron from 2002-2006, and has been an associate professor, then professor at the University of California, San Diego since 2006. His expertise lies in composite materials processing and applications, energy absorption materials and structures, energy conversion materials and structures, smart materials and structures, and failure analysis of engineering materials and structures.