Post 4

One piece of advice for any NTU newcomers, BUY A MAP!!!!!!

It’s really easy to get lost in this school so avoid unfamiliar shortcuts or you will most likely be lost for at least 30mins (Believe us, we have personally experienced it.)

Okay, last Thursday, we have had a simulation trial run with our dear friends Jason and Bernard who has once again dedicated their time in helping us to understand more about composite materials and testing of its properties. (Further thanks to Jason for your slides, have an enjoyable time in Korea and have fun!)

Well, we the advances in computer sciences, we are now able to simulate testing procedure without the need to carry out the actual process. As the results from the computed simulation are very similar to the actual experimental result, there is a potential for us to rely on simulated process in the future, saving us the hassle. However, one thing to note is that the inputs must be correct and accurate.

Today, we were graced by the presence of doctor Du who showed us some of NTU mse laboratories equipments as well as some of their current projects, here are some pictures for you to see.

  

Sorry for spamming. So we are currently busy preparing for our final project/presentation this Wednesday. Hopefully we can win it, wish us luck. We are approaching the end of our research shadowing, lets end it with a bang!! this is defmat signing out for the last time. Thankyou all for all the support you have given to the members, one way or another.

Post 3

So here is post number 3 woohoo!!!

Anyways,  reporting yesterday at SAC for our group meeting on our project discussion. The SAC is indeed a place one who is new to NTU should check out. Business first, defmat had our group discussion there for the whole morning to brainstorm on our initial project: electronic skin, which we decided to give up on for a better one. But we must admit, the SAC is quite a nice place to study in, though one must be wary of distractions at every corner, literally.

So after lunch, our group decided to have a nice and fun session of pool, here are some pics for you to enjoy.

Thats me!! :)

So  what did we do today? Well after a brief talk with AP Cheng Zhong, we had gained better understanding on the topic of composites which is the mixing of two or more compound at a macro level. Though composites are widely used due to their superior mechanical properties, their cost are “superior” to others as well.

With our new friends Jason( not to be confused with our mentor)  and Bernard, we had a more clear directon of the purpose and usage of composites in our daily lives. With this new insights, we were able to come up with our new research propersal.

Most of our discussion were targeted at carbon fiber, here are some of its product:

( For more carbon fiber products, visit  http://www.carbonfiberguru.com )

Cool right!!!

Composites not only focused on the types of materials used but also its arrangement and braiding of the fabric. 

So this is all we have for today, look out for our post number 4 for more information. This is DefMat reporting off duty.

Post 2

Alright, like We promised, this is DefMat second post on our job shadowing programme.

For the past 2 days, we have been learning about thermal properties of polymers and how we go about testing them.

The picture above is the equipment we use to carry out thermal gravimetric analysis with; it has temperature range to 1000 degree Celsius so you might want to keep your fingers away.

Under the careful guidance of our friends we are able to carry our various samples testing, in which we were given the opportunity to make our own samples to test.

 The testing process is an extremely process; however, it really takes a long time for completion and to get our results. (Ranging from 45mins to a few hours)

We also studied the cycle of the thermal decomposition process as well as the crystallization of the sample when subjected to high temperature heating.

Here is a picture of the equipment we used for testing of some weird graphs below.

It was all very interesting as we were also able to observe other processes which even involve liquid nitrogen.

Okay, so this is the end of our second post, we will be starting on our project tomorrow on… sorry its classified. Stay tunes for more updates, this is DefMat saying: Lights Out

(Here are some other pictures for you to see)