Metal foam obliterates bullets – and that's just the beginning

Composite metal foams (CMFs) are tough enough to turn an armor-piercing bullet into dust on impact. Given that these foams are also lighter than metal plating, the material has obvious implications for creating new types ...

Air travel changes at less than supersonic speed

When the Concorde started flying in the 1970s, hopes were high that the traveling masses would soon streak through the air faster than the speed of sound or soar in planes that hurtled like missiles above the earth's atmosphere. ...

Vascular composites enable dynamic structural materials

Taking their cue from biological circulatory systems, University of Illinois researchers have developed vascularized structural composites, creating materials that are lightweight and strong with potential for self-healing, ...

Lightweight composites to get trimmer and smarter

(PhysOrg.com) -- CSIRO researchers have set themselves the goal of producing a new generation of super-strong, lightweight polymer composite materials for use in aircraft, road vehicles, trains and ferries.

'Nanostitching' could strengthen airplane skins, more

MIT engineers are using carbon nanotubes only billionths of a meter thick to stitch together aerospace materials in work that could make airplane skins and other products some 10 times stronger at a nominal increase in cost.