Aerospace Engineering

Scott R. White

Professor

swhite@uiuc.edu

Return to: Faculty

Office address	Mailing Address	Research Group
205C Talbot Lab 217-333-1077	306 Talbot Lab 104 S. Wright St. Urbana, IL 61801	Autonomic Healing Research
Research Areas
Research in Scott White's labs is directed toward the creation of new materials systems that exhibit autonomy - the ability to achieve adaptation and response in an independent and automatic fashion. Their research is concerned with the synthetic reproduction of autonomic biological functions, achieved through the creation and integration of complex materials systems. Two main thrusts of the research are materials with self-generating function and materials with self-regulating function. Self-generating materials incorporate the ability to create, transform, or replicate themselves by a synthetic route. Self-regulating materials possess the ability to autonomically assess their state and respond through multiscale and multifunctional mechanisms such as magnetostrictive actuation or shape memory behavior. Working in collaboration with Professors Moore, Braun, Sottos, Geubelle, and Lewis, White's group at the Beckman Institute is developing self-generating structural materials for autonomic damage control in polymeric structures such as circuit boards or large-scale composite structures. One example is the incorporation of a healing agent into the matrix of a polymer composite by microencapsulation. A living ROMP polymerization is triggered by contact with an embedded catalyst so that internal fracture surfaces are rebonded. Work is ongoing to optimize the material system and assess the efficiency of healing under a variety of external conditions. White's group is also developing self-regulating materials such as magnetostrictive particle tagged polymer composites. Just as radioactive tracers are used in biomedical imaging to pinpoint the site of damage in the human body, the magnetostrictive particles are used as "tags" in the host composite material and their interrogation and response indicates the position of damage. Applications for this technology have been proposed in health-monitoring, intelligent processing, non-destructive evaluation, and material characterization. White's group is focused on processing routes for achieving tagging and performance characterization of tagged materials. White's sources of research funding include AFOSR, NSF, NASA, ARL, Grainger Foundation and several industrial companies.

Office address

Mailing Address

Research Group

205C Talbot Lab
217-333-1077

306 Talbot Lab
104 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

Autonomic Healing Research

Research Areas

Research in Scott White's labs is directed toward the creation of new materials systems that exhibit autonomy - the ability to achieve adaptation and response in an independent and automatic fashion. Their research is concerned with the synthetic reproduction of autonomic biological functions, achieved through the creation and integration of complex materials systems. Two main thrusts of the research are materials with self-generating function and materials with self-regulating function. Self-generating materials incorporate the ability to create, transform, or replicate themselves by a synthetic route. Self-regulating materials possess the ability to autonomically assess their state and respond through multiscale and multifunctional mechanisms such as magnetostrictive actuation or shape memory behavior.

Working in collaboration with Professors Moore, Braun, Sottos, Geubelle, and Lewis, White's group at the Beckman Institute is developing self-generating structural materials for autonomic damage control in polymeric structures such as circuit boards or large-scale composite structures. One example is the incorporation of a healing agent into the matrix of a polymer composite by microencapsulation. A living ROMP polymerization is triggered by contact with an embedded catalyst so that internal fracture surfaces are rebonded. Work is ongoing to optimize the material system and assess the efficiency of healing under a variety of external conditions.

White's group is also developing self-regulating materials such as magnetostrictive particle tagged polymer composites. Just as radioactive tracers are used in biomedical imaging to pinpoint the site of damage in the human body, the magnetostrictive particles are used as "tags" in the host composite material and their interrogation and response indicates the position of damage. Applications for this technology have been proposed in health-monitoring, intelligent processing, non-destructive evaluation, and material characterization. White's group is focused on processing routes for achieving tagging and performance characterization of tagged materials.

White's sources of research funding include AFOSR, NSF, NASA, ARL, Grainger Foundation and several industrial companies.

Education:

Ph.D., Engineering Mechanics, The Pennsylvania State University, August 1990.
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Washington University, May 1987.
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of Missouri - Rolla, May 1985.

Academic Positions:

2003, Faculty Fellow, Army Research Lab (sabbatical)
2002-present , Professor, Departments of Aerospace Engineering, Theoretical and Applied Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois.
2000-present, Part-time Faculty, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois.
1996-2002 , Associate Professor, Departments of Aero. Engineering, Theoretical and Applied Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois.
1990-1996, Assistant Professor, Departments of Aero. Engineering, and Theoretical and Applied Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois.
1990-1992, Research Associate, National Center for Composite Materials Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois.
1989-1990, Instructor, Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Penn State University.
1988, Instructor, Department of Engineering Graphics, Penn State University

Major Honors and Awards:

Willett Faculty Scholar, College of Engineering, UIUC, (2002-2005)
Best Paper Award, American Society for Composites (2002, 2003)
Top Ten Innovations in Science, Popular Science (2001)
The Tech Museum Award, Finalist, The Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, CA (2001)
UIUC College of Engineering Senior Xerox Research Award (2001)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Research Team Award (1997)
Office of Naval Research, Young Investigator Award (1993)
National Science Foundation, Research Initiation Award (1992)

Selected Publications:

S.R. White, N.R. Sottos, J. Moore, P. Geubelle, M. Kessler, E. Brown, S. Suresh, and S. Viswanathan, "Autonomic healing of polymer composites," Nature, 409, 2001, pp. 794-797.
D. Therriault, S.R. White, and J.A. Lewis, "Chaotic mixing in three-dimensional microvascular networks fabricated by direct-write assembly," Nature Materials, 2(4), 2003, pp. 265-271.
M.R. Kessler, N.R. Sottos, and S.R. White, "Self-healing structural composite materials," Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, 34(8), 2003, pp. 743-753.
E.N. Brown, M.R. Kessler, N.R. Sottos, and S.R. White, "In situ poly(urea-formaldehyde) microencapsulation of dicyclopentadiene," Journal of Microencapsulation, 20(6), 2003, pp. 719-730.
E.N. Brown, S.R. White and N.R. Sottos, "Microcapsule induced toughening in a self-healing polymer composite," Journal of Materials Science, 39, 2004, pp. 1703-1710.