Team develops breakthroughs for autos, planes to be lighter, tougher, roomier

Medford, Mass. -- Cars and planes will be lighter, tougher and roomier in a few years thanks to a breakthrough technology announced today at an international gathering of automotive industry experts in California. UniStates Technology Corporation and Tufts University are collaborating to apply this technology to make lightweight materials used in everything from cars and planes to roads and bridges.

"I am happy to be working with the talented engineers at Tufts University," said Charles R. Owens, chairman of UniStates. "Together we plan to work with private industry and government to make consumer and industrial products nearly twice as strong and half as heavy."

Owens, who invented this Reflexive Materials Technology ™ (RMT), will explain how the new technology will help improve fuel efficiency, and enhance safety and comfort at the 45th International Society for the Advancement of

Materials and Process Engineering Symposium and Exhibition in Long Beach, Calif.

"What is so important about RMT technology is way it uses distributed porosity to re-organize the internal geometry of structures to make them lighter and stronger without changing their shapes," said Tufts University's Charalabos C. Doumanidis, associate professor of mechanical engineering. "It can be used on just about any material, product, and structure to benefit other industries like biomedical devices and construction."

Owens will also describe techniques for enhancing performance using RMT distributed porosity ™ to make lightweight materials, products, and structures. The RMT research and development will be carried out at Tufts University's Medford laboratories under the direction of Doumanidis. There, engineering faculty and students will create primarily metals and plastics materials using RMT for industry and government testing and eval
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Contact: Christen Graham
christen.graham@tufts.edu
617-627-5906
Tufts University
24-May-2000