Lexington, KY - You didn't see the SUV in your blind spot when you changed lanes on Man O'
War Boulevard, and the accident put quite a dent in your fender. It's time to visit a body shop for an expensive repair job.
But what if one day that fender could be made with tiny molecules in long, repeating chains called polymers, and that damaged fender could be heated and manipulated until it miraculously popped back into its original shape? Call it repairable automobile skin. In a lab in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Kentucky, Haluk Karaca, Ph.D., busily tests shape-memory polymers that can be crushed, bent or twisted one way, then when heated, regain their original shape as they cool.
"They are a new kind of material. There are a couple of companies that are commercializing them, like TRG in Dayton," said Karaca.
A native of Turkey, Karaca is an assistant professor in mechanical engineering. He came to UK in 2008 after earning his master's degree and Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. He is researching the many ways polymers can be used in everyday things. Already they can be found in everything from the windshields of jet fighters to children's playground equipment. Polymers are even naturally contained in some of the foods we enjoy.
"The polymers we're looking at have potential uses for removing blood clots from blood vessels, as well as other purposes," explained Karaca. "They have an added advantage in that they can be biodegradable, so after doing their job in a person's body, they disappear."
UK would love for Karaca's research on polymers to yield commercial value. In fact, that is one of the pillars of UK President Lee Todd's philosophy, that the best ideas flowing from the minds of faculty members should help start new companies and create jobs for the commonwealth.
"It's our responsibility as a university to try to get as much of the research that's done out to the community. Commercializing is just one way to do it," said Taunya Phillips, who handles engineering commercialization at the UK Office for Commercialization & Economic Development. "We also want to create opportunities for the faculty and commercialize their technology so that they can take those ideas to a large company, or to help them create a business around that invention or discovery. That helps the economic condition of the state by creating high-tech jobs."
Shape-memory polymers are an emerging class of polymers with applications spanning various areas of everyday life, said Karaca. Such applications can be found in smart fabrics, heat shrinkable tubes for electronics or films for packaging, self-deployable sun sails in spacecraft, self-disassembling mobile phones, intelligent medical devices, or implants for minimally invasive surgery, to name a few.
"These examples cover only a small number of the possible applications of shape-memory technology, which shows potential in numerous other applications," he said.
Another attractive application area for shape-memory polymers, with potential for the creation of new companies and jobs, is their use in active medical devices. First examples include a laser-activated device for the mechanical removal of blood clots. Another idea is degradable shape-memory sutures for wound closure.
Phillips wants these ideas and many more to produce benefits for the university, faculty and students.
"It helps our stature within the university community, but it's more about creating opportunities for faculty members and our students who can work in those high tech companies," Phillips said.
She believes these laboratory initiatives also create an entrepreneur culture that has long been lacking in Kentucky. The goal is to provide students with options so they don't have to flee after graduation to cities and states with tech-minded universities and entrepreneurial local economies, like California and Massachusetts.
"They don't necessarily have to leave Kentucky to find a job," urged Phillips. "Maybe they, too, will want to start a company."
UK has an encouraging though modest start, with 800-plus tech jobs created locally (mainly in the biomedical field) in the last seven years. They emerged from faculty-created start-up companies that UK supported.
The reason Karaca became a mechanical engineer goes back to his childhood.
"I had toys and always looked at them inside and out and wondered how they worked and moved," he recalled. After Texas A&M, he started working on materials and eventually gravitated toward the concept of shape memory. "That fascinated me," he said.
Recently, Lockheed Martin, the multinational aerospace manufacturer, global security and advanced technology company, and Hypercomp/NextGen have been developing and testing "morphing wings," Karaca said. These jet wings would change shape and adjust the surface area based on flying conditions, with the surface area increasing as much as 300 percent as needed.
"Other states have been at it (creating start-ups and encouraging entrepreneurship) a lot longer than us. We're really making a push now," said Phillips. "Part of it is the culture, but we're working on that."