Center for composite and hybrid materials interfacing (CHMI): NSF industry/university cooperative research center for composite joining and bonding

Overview

• CHMI is an NSF-funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) conducting pre-competitive, cutting-edge research on composite materials joining and interfacing.
• The center operates at three university sites: the Georgia Institute of Technology (lead site), Oakland University, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
• CHMI research is selected, funded and steered by the center's Industry Advisory Board (IAB) and is conducted at the partner sites in close collaboration with industry members.
• The current IAB includes both small (fewer than 500 employees, SBA definition) and large companies from the aerospace, automotive, ground vehicle, farm equipment, materials/chemical and wind power sectors.
• Faculty at the three sites contribute expertise in material science, composite manufacturing and material joining. The center is supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement 2052714.

Research focus areas

Projects in the current cycle (January 2025 - December 2026) that involve UT Knoxville faculty include:

• Joining carbon fiber thermoplastics to dissimilar materials (Drs. Dayakar Penumadu, Donggang Yao and Tim Truster)
• Bond strength impact from partially cured substrates (Drs. Christopher Muhlstein, Uday Vaidya and Donggang Yao)
• Enhancing fiber composites performance with optimal sizing (Drs. Uday Vaidya, Krishnan Veluswamy and Dayakar Penumadu)

Other current and inaugural (April 2022 - March 2025) center projects cover heterogeneous data fusion for non-destructive inspection and kissing-bond detection, adhesive bonding and sustainability, modeling and real-time health monitoring of composite and multi-material structural joints, elasto-plastic strength-degradation modeling of adhesive joints with additively manufactured substrates, reversible bonded load-bearing joints, standard testing and analysis protocols with advanced data analytics and machine learning, smart processing and sensing of joints in extreme environments, advanced NDE/NDT methods for composite and hybrid material joints, and low-cost and recycled carbon fiber composite intermediates for tailored joining.

Membership & engagement

Companies engage as CHMI members through the Industry Advisory Board. The center states the following membership benefits:

• A seat on the Industry Advisory Board (a full member has one vote, an associate member half a vote)
• The ability to steer and propose research projects of interest to industry
• Participation in CHMI technology roadmapping
• Access to pre-competitive and cutting-edge technologies
• Interaction with potential employees
• Access to state-of-the-art R&D facilities and testbeds across all partnering university sites
• Networking opportunities

The membership agreement and bylaws are published on the center's site. Specific fee levels are not stated publicly.