Barry C. – TechConnect Briefs

Continuous Preparation of Polymer Nanocomposites for Applications in Novel Substrates, Multilayered Materials, and 3D Printing

Barry C., Kazmer D., Mead J., University of Massachusetts-Lowell, US

Polymer nanocomposites are composed of a nanofiller, such as nanoclay, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and nanosilver, in a polymer matrix. Depending on the choice of filler, these nanocomposites exhibit unique material properties, including improved barrier properties, [...]

Durable Superhydrophobic Coating

Nahum A. Panwar T., Dodiuk H., Kenig S., Barry C., Mead J., UMass Lowell, US

Bottom up cost-effective and durable superhydrophobic coatings were formulated using hydrophobic silica nanoparticles and epoxy binder at different epoxy-to-silica nanoparticle ratios. The localization of the silica nanoparticles in the dissolved epoxy oligomers before curing and [...]

Inherently Super-omniphobic Fibers and Fabrics

Truong Q., Zukas W., Welsh E., Stenhouse P., Brown P., Hoffman N., Mead J., Barry C., Mooney P., Sherer J., Panwar A., Koene B., Martin R., Cohen R., McKinley G., Kleingartner J., Chen D., U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research Development & Engineering Center, US

Work presented in this paper will introduce a process which modifies fiber geometry and its surface structure, and the resulting fabric’s weave structure with an additional structural level consisting of reentrant microtextural features that result [...]

Scalable Polymer Patterning (SP2)

Mead J., Barry C., University of Massachusetts-Lowell, US

Polymeric materials are easily fabricated into a wide array of structures for numerous applications. The bulk properties can be tailored for preparing novel structures and substrates for use as substrates for 3D printing. Particularly, the [...]

High-rate Manufacturing of 3D Products with Nanostructured Surfaces

Barry C., De Jesus Vega M., Mead J., University of Massachusetts-Lowell, US

Injection molding permits manufacturing of complex three-dimensional polymer products with nanostructured surfaces in less than 30 seconds. New work has explored the practical limits of feature size during injection molding. Surfaces with a range of [...]

Rapid Printed Tooling for High-rate Production of Microstructured Surfaces

De Jesus Vega M., Shearer J., Mead J., Barry C., University of Massachusetts-Lowell, US

Method for production of tooling for microstructure surfaces

Multilayer co-extrusion processing of PS/TPV/CNTs nanocomposites

Jian R., Panwar A., Barry C., Mead J., UMass Lowell, US

The development of layer multiplying technique using coextrusion is able to create polymer films having several thousand layers with individual layer thickness ranging from a few microns to several nanometers. The number of individual layers [...]

Durable Superhydrophobic Coatings for Icephobic Applications

Nahum T., Mitra S., Panwar A., Barry C., Dodiuk H., Kenig S., Mead J., UMass Lowell, US

Recent studies about the application of superhydrophobic surfaces for anti-ice properties have found that ice adhesion strength is reduced significantly compared to bare aluminum surfaces, but these surfaces lack durability. In this work, bottom up [...]

Polymer Based Continuous Offset Printing

Mead J., Barry C., University of Massachusetts-Lowell, US

Polymeric materials have tremendous potential for nano and micro-structured products because of their fabrication ease and wide property range. The fabrication processes for polymers are cost-effective and rapid. This work presents novel manufacturing approaches for [...]

Polymer Based Continuous Offset Printing

Mead J., Barry C., University of Massachusetts-Lowell, US

Polymeric materials have tremendous potential for nano and micro-structured products because of their fabrication ease and wide property range. The fabrication processes for polymers are cost-effective and rapid. This work presents novel manufacturing approaches for [...]