NECST home page

Welcome to MIT's Nano-Engineered Composite aerospace STructures (NECST) Consortium public website. NECST Members should use the Members-Only link above to access additional material including prepublications, Intellectual Property (IP) information, and research personnel and theses. On this public page you will find an overview of the Consortium’s activities and journal articles and conference papers that have appeared, as well as NECST's work reported in the media.

NECST Director: Professor Brian L. Wardle

NECST formally launched in May 2007 during the first Members-only meeting on the MIT campus. We are pleased to be partnered with Airbus S.A.S., Boeing, Embraer, Lockheed Martin, Saab AB, Spirit AeroSystems, Textron Inc., Composite Systems Technology, and Toho Tenax. The NECST industry Consortium is IP-generating, and Members have specific rights to both background and new IP. A Consortium Prospectus is available upon request.

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image of necst logo fabricated from forests of carbon nanotubes

NECST Overview

The NECST Consortium’s technology focus is to improve the performance of advanced aerospace materials/structures through strategic use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) combined with traditional advanced composites to form hybrid architectures. Two primary 3D nano-engineered architectures are being explored and developed, both polymer-matrix based. The fabrication strategy involves novel synthesis of high-quality, long (several millimeters), aligned CNTs placed strategically in existing advanced composite systems. Early results have demonstrated that high-quality CNT/traditional hybrid composite laminates can be architected and fabricated at rates and scales that can be used in full-scale aerospace structures; this made the formation of the NECST industry Consortium imperative.

The unifying focus of the Consortium is improved performance of advanced aerospace structures and, as such, it is centered in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, leveraging the experience and contributions of an advanced composites laboratory (TELAMS) in existence for over 30 years, and we continue to collaborate with Dr. John Hart (now Prof. John Hart at the University of Michigan's Mechanical Engineering Department) on CNT processing and characterization topics. The involvement of the Precision Engineering Research Group in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering provides expertise in developing equipment and processes for high-rate manufacturing and large-scale integration of nano-engineered composites. The research of the Consortium spans topics from fundamental science (e.g., catalyst characteristics for CNT growth) to more applied research such as laminate level manufacturing and characterization, to such topics as environmental health and safety of nanostructured materials.

In addition to several MIT-based joint projects, the NECST group has collaborations with several leading academic group's from around the world:

Professor H. Thomas Hahn at his Multifunctional Composites Laboratory at UCLA

Professor Shigeo Maruyama at his Carbon Nanotube and Nano-Therm Laboratory at the Univ. of Tokyo

Professor Dimitrios Papavassiliou at his Computational Transport Processes group at the Univ. of Oklahoma

Website content and administrative questions: Mark Prendergast

Published Journal Articles

	"High-yield growth of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes on a continuously moving substrate" R Guzmán de Villoria, S L Figueredo, A J Hart, S A Steiner III, A H Slocum and B L Wardle 2009 Nanotechnology 20 405611 (8pp) doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/20/40/405611 Print publication: Issue 40 (7 October 2009)
	"Multifunctional properties of high volume fraction aligned carbon nanotube polymer composites with controlled morphology" Hülya Cebeci, Roberto Guzman de Villoria, A. John Hart, Brian L. Wardle, Composites Science and Technology (2009), doi:10.1016/j.compscitech.2009.08.006 Volume 69, Issues 15-16, December 2009, Pages 2649-2656
	"Interlaminar and intralaminar reinforcement of composite laminates with aligned carbon nanotubes" Sunny S. Wicks, Roberto Guzman de Villoria, Brian L. Wardle, Composites Science and Technology (2009), doi:10.1016/j.compscitech.2009.09.001
	"Nanoscale Zirconia as a Nonmetallic Catalyst for Graphitization of Carbon and Growth of Single- and Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes" Stephen A. Steiner III, Theodore F. Baumann, Bernhard C. Bayer, Raoul Blume, Marcus A. Worsley, Warren J. MoberlyChan, Elisabeth L. Shaw,¶ Robert Schlogl, A. John Hart, Stephan Hofmann, and Brian L. Wardle, Am. Chem. Soc., Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/ja902913r Publication Date (Web): August 10, 2009 Copyright © 2009 American Chemical Society
	Hai M. Duong, Dimitrios V. Papavassiliou, Kieran J. Mullen, Brian L. Wardle, Shigeo Maruyama,"A numerical study on the effective thermal conductivity of biological fluids containing single-walled carbon nanotubes" International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2009.06.016
	Duong, H.M., Yamamoto, N., Papavassiliou, D.V., Maruyama, S., and B.L. Wardle “Inter Carbon Nanotube Contact in Thermal Transport of Controlled-Morphology Polymer Nanocomposites”, Nanotechnology, Vol. 20, 2009, pages 155702 (10 pp.). doi:10.1088/0957-4484/20/15/155702 Print publication: Issue 15 (15 April 2009)		Blanco, J., Garcia, E.J., Guzman deVilloria, R., and B.L. Wardle, “Limiting Mechanisms in Mode I Interlaminar Toughness of Composites Reinforced with Aligned Carbon Nanotubes”, J. Composite Materials, Vol. 43 (8), April 2009.
	Namiko Yamamoto, A. John Hart, Brian L. Wardle, Enrique J. Garcia, Sunny S. Wicks, Hai M. Duong, Alexander H. Slocum, "High-yield growth and morphology control of aligned carbon nanotubes on ceramic fibers for multifunctional enhancement of structural composites", Carbon, Vol. 47, Issue 3, March 2009, pp. 551-560		H. M. Duong, D. V. Papavassiliou, K. J. Mullen, B.L. Wardle, and S. Maruyama, "Calculated thermal properties of single walled carbon nanotube suspensions," J. Phys. Chem. C, (2008), vol. 112, no. 50, pp. 19860-19865
	Dhimiter Bello , Brian L. Wardle, Namiko Yamamoto, Roberto Guzman deVilloria, Enrique J. Garcia, Anastasios J. Hart, Kwangseog Ahn, Michael J. Ellenbecker and Marilyn Hallock "Exposure to nanoscale particles and fibers during machining of hybrid advanced composites containing carbon nanotubes" Journal of Nanoparticle Research, DOI: 10.1007/s11051-008-9499-4
	Garcia, E.J., Wardle, B.L., Hart, J., and A. Slocum, Joining Prepreg Composite Interfaces with Aligned Carbon Nanotubes, Composites Part A, Vol. 39, Issue 6, June 2008, pp. 1065-1070		Wardle, B.L., Saito, Diego S., Garcia, E.J., Hart, A.J., Guzman de Villoria, R., and Verploegen, E. A., "Fabrication and Characterization of Ultra-High Volume Fraction Aligned Carbon Nanotube-Polymer Composites, Advanced Materials, Vol. 20, Issue 14, pp. 2655-2796
	Garcia, E.J., Wardle, B.L., Hart, J., Yamamoto, N., and A. Slocum, “Fabrication and Multifunctional Properties of a Hybrid Laminate with Aligned Carbon Nanotubes Grown In Situ”, Composites Science and Technology, Volume 68, Issue 9, July 2008, Pages 2034-2041		Garcia, E.J., Hart, J., Wardle, B.L. and A. Slocum, “Fabrication of Composite Microstructures by Capillarity-driven Wetting of Aligned Carbon Nanotubes with Polymers”, Nanotechnology, Vol. 18, No. 16, April 2007, pages 165602
	Garcia, E.J., Hart, J., Wardle, B.L. and A. Slocum, “Fabrication and Nanocompression Testing of Aligned CNT/Polymer Nanocomposites”, Advanced Materials, Vol.19, Issue 16:2151-2156, 2007		Bello, D., Hart, A.J., Ahn, K., Hallock, M., Yamamoto, N., Garcia, E.J., Ellenbecker, E.J., and B.L. Wardle, “Particle Exposure Levels During CVD Growth and Subsequent Handling of Vertically-aligned Carbon Nanotube Films”, Vol. 46, Issue 6, May 2008

Conference Presentations & Posters

POSTER
"Fabrication and Characterization of Aligned CNT Polymer Nanocomposites"

POSTER
"Chemical Vapor Deposition As a Route for the Fabrication of Variable Volume Fraction Aligned Carbon Nanotube Polymeric Nanocomposites"

Ninth International Conference on the
Science and Application
of Nanotubes
Le Corum,
Montpellier, France
June 29 - July 4, 2008

ILP
2007 MIT
Research and Development Conference
MIT Campus, Cambridge, MA
November 14-15, 2007

Presented by
MIT Industrial Liason Program

Professor Brian L. Wardle
Plenary Presentation:
"Literally Big Nano: Nano-Engineered
Advanced Composites"

Video: Windows Media Player
Video: Quicktime

POSTER
"Novel Composite Structures Reinforced with
Aligned Carbon Nanotubes"

Making carbon nanotubes without a metal catalyst

Researchers at MIT have for the first time shown that carbon nanotubes can grow without a metal catalyst. They demonstrate that the same compound found in cubic zirconia can grow nanotubes without the unwanted side effects of metal.

"Visions of the Future"
is a 3-part BBC
documentary. In Part 3,
"The Quantum Revolution",
Dr. Michio Kaku visits NECST researchers A. John Hart, and Steven Steiner.