Considering the high level of heat and flame exposure firefighters encounter while performing their work activities, personal protective equipment (PPE) is utmost importance to enhance safety. Phase change materials (PCMs) are known as advanced able absorb amounts thermal energy, with potential increase performance clothing. In this work, a PCM-vest was developed for first time, its evaluated. ...

Self-powered sensors are analytical devices able to generate their own energy, either from the sample itself or from their surroundings. The conventional approaches rely heavily on silicon-based electronics, which results in increased complexity and cost, and prevents the broader use of these smart systems. Here we show that electrochromic materials can overcome the existing limitations by simp...

Self-powered sensors are analytical devices able to generate their own energy, either from the sample itself or from their surroundings. The conventional approaches rely heavily on silicon-based electronics, which results in increased complexity and cost, and prevents the broader use of these smart systems. Here we show that electrochromic materials can overcome the existing limitations by simp...

Advances in flexible electronic materials and smart textile, along with broad availability of smart phones, cloud and wireless systems have empowered the wearable technologies for significant impact on future of digital and personalized healthcare as well as consumer electronics. However, challenges related to lack of accuracy, reliability, high power consumption, rigid or bulky form factor and...

A methodology for the predictive modeling of smart structures with in-situ sensing capability is presented and discussed. First, the smart structures concept is briefly reviewed. Then, self-sensing smart structures with in-situ sensing capabilities are introduced. Focus is placed on active sensing methods using ultrasonic guided waves in thin-wall structures. The challenges of modeling ultrason...

Smart materials display coupling between electrical, magnetic, thermal and elastic behavior. Hence these materials have inherent sensing and actuation capacities. However, the hysteresis inherent to smart materials presents a challenge in control of these actuators/sensors. Inverse compensation is a fundamental approach to cope with hysteresis, where one aims to cancel out the hysteresis effect...

Inspired by the marine mussel adhesive protein, smart, magnetically controllable, oil adsorption nanofibrous materials were successfully fabricated in this research. Taking advantage of the properties of dopamine whose molecular structure mimics the single unit of the marine mussel adhesive protein and can be polymerized in alkaline solution forming a "glue" layer on many kinds of material surf...