Collaborative Research: Mechanics of Confined Interfaces in Hierarchical Ceramic Composites Under Extreme Conditions

Advanced ceramic composites are increasingly essential for technologies operating in extreme environments, including aerospace propulsion, hypersonic flight, fusion energy systems, and high-temperature industrial infrastructure. These applications demand structural materials that can sustain severe thermal gradients, radiation exposure, and mechanical loading while maintaining reliability over long service lifetimes. However, conventional ceramic materials remain limited by the mechanical weakness of their internal interfaces, where cracking, delamination, and progressive damage often initiate under coupled thermomechanical conditions. Existing strategies for improving interfacial performance rely primarily on chemical bonding modifications or coatings, which can degrade at elevated temperatures or under environmental attack. This research aims to establish a new scientific foundation for interface engineering through geometric confinement and hierarchical reinforcement in ceramic composites. By exploiting nanoscale steric interactions, interlocking architectures, and mechanically confined interfaces, the project seeks to create robust load-transfer mechanisms that enhance strength, toughness, and damage tolerance without relying solely on interfacial chemistry. The resulting knowledge will support the development of next-generation structural materials with improved durability and resilience for energy, transportation, and defense applications, while advancing broader understanding in mechanics and materials science. Potential broader impacts include more efficient high-temperature systems, safer aerospace and energy technologies, strengthened domestic advanced-manufacturing capabilities, and interdisciplinary educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students at the intersection of mechanics, materials science, nanotechnology, and advanced manufacturing. The project will establish a multiscale framework to investigate how geometrically confined interfaces govern deformation and failure in silicon carbide ceramic composites reinforced with graphenated carbon nanotubes and related nanoscale architectures. The central hypothesis is that geometric confinement, steric interactions, and hierarchical interlocking mechanisms can substantially enhance interfacial load transfer, crack deflection, frictional sliding resistance, and energy dissipation under extreme thermomechanical environments. To test this hypothesis, the research will integrate theoretical modeling, multiscale numerical simulations, machine learning, advanced manufacturing, and experimental characterization. Molecular dynamics simulations and continuum-scale constitutive models will be developed to quantify how nanoscale confinement influences interfacial shear strength, sliding behavior, and progressive failure evolution. Machine learning approaches will be used to identify structure-property relationships and accelerate the discovery of robust interface architectures across a broad design space. Finite element simulations will further examine stress redistribution, crack propagation, and damage accumulation within hierarchical composite systems subjected to coupled thermal and mechanical loading. Experimentally, model ceramic composite systems will be fabricated using advanced nanomaterial integration and high-temperature processing methods to create controlled confined-interface architectures. Mechanical characterization under elevated-temperature and environmentally aggressive conditions, together with microscopy, spectroscopy, and full-field deformation measurements, will be used to connect interface geometry and microstructural evolution to composite performance. The outcomes are expected to establish a mechanistic process-structure-property framework for confined-interface ceramic composites, providing predictive insight and broadly applicable design principles for high-performance structural materials capable of operating reliably in extreme NSF Award ID: 2605493 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Zhao Qin | Institution: Syracuse University, SYRACUSE, NY | Award Amount: $300,070 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2605493 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2605493.html