Amorphous Metals (AMs) & Composites for NASA Spacecraft Hardware; Science & Applications
Douglas C. Hofmann, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator, Technologist and Founder of Metallurgy Facility, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Lecturer and Visiting Associate, Materials Science and Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology
ABSTRACT
NASA JPL is the world’s leader in robotic space exploration, as demonstrated by the recent success of the Mars Science Laboratory and its rover, Curiosity. JPL missions require engineering for extreme environments, which results in innovative materials solutions, new manufacturing technologies and novel fundamental science. Developing and implementing materials for these missions is the focus of the new JPL Metallurgy Facility, a $1M laboratory founded by Dr. Hofmann in 2012 and funded by NASA Headquarters’ Center Innovation Funding (CIF). The focus of the new facility is to fill a void in structural materials and metallurgy research that exists at both the university and government level. The fundamental idea is to solve engineering problems by designing new materials and processing techniques, rather than re-engineering applications to fit existing materials. The JPL Metallurgy Facility sits on the boundary between fundamental science and spacecraft implementation, which offers a unique opportunity for collaborative research between JPL and universities. Currently, three Caltech graduate students perform research towards their Ph.D. degrees utilizing the new facility and collaborations exist between JPL, Caltech, USC, UCSD and GaTech.
The current talk focuses on the science and applications of new materials for future NASA spacecraft, with emphasis on how real-world problems drive materials development. Among the materials that will be discussed are amorphous metals and bulk metallic glass composites. These materials have been developed for use as low-temperature gears for a future Mars rover, orbital debris shielding for spacecraft and satellites, net-shaped mirrors, cellular structures and optical mounts. In each application, a new material or manufacturing process enables a function that cannot be obtained through traditional techniques. Collaboration between Dr. Hofmann’s and Professor Vecchio’s groups on some of these materials will be discussed. The talk will also contain details on an upcoming NASA spaceflight experiment to the International Space Station in 2016 to perform fundamental physical science research using the new Materials Science Research Rack.
BIOSKETCH
Dr. Douglas Hofmann is a Principal Investigator in the areas of Metallurgy and Materials Science and is the Section Technologist for Mechanical Fabrication and Test at JPL. He is also a Lecturer and Visiting Associate in Materials Science and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at San Diego in 2003 and 2004, respectively, and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science in 2006 and 2008, respectively, from Caltech. From 2008-10, he worked as a Head of Research and Development for Liquidmetal Technologies Inc., working towards the industrialization of amorphous metals and composites. In 2010, he was hired at JPL, where he has worked as a scientist and as the founder of the new JPL Metallurgy Facility. His research group at Caltech, currently made up of three graduate students, has contributed to the development of the field of bulk metallic glass composites. He is an author of more than 20 peer-reviewed journal publications and has written over a dozen patents and patent applications, several of which have been licensed for commercial production. He has been a PI or Co-I on over $2M in funded research, including being PI of a NASA spaceflight mission, and directs or has directed graduate research projects for students at over ten universities. He also serves as a Core Member of the NASA/JPL Early Mission Formulation Team that develops concepts for future space missions. Among his other work at Caltech, he has also been the lecturer for MS 131, Structure and Bonding in Crystalline Solids, since 2010.