Materials Research Laboratories Overview
The Materials Research Laboratories are located in Building 1205 at NASA Langley Research Center and houses the experimental capabilities of two Materials Research branches; all laboratory facilities for the Durability, Damage Tolerance and Reliability Branch (DDTRB) and a portion of the laboratories operated by the Advanced Materials and Processing Branch (AMPB). The Materials Research Laboratories is immediately next door to the Structures Research Laboratory.
The original main-laboratory portion of the building was constructed in 1966 and was originally called the Fatigue and Fracture Laboratory. From the start, the mission of the laboratory was to characterize the mechanical performance of aerospace materials and structures and this remains an element of the current mission. Over the years, additions were added to the building to expand the laboratory capability as fracture mechanics technology matured and merged with other disciplines (most notably material processing and analysis). Currently, the DDTRB portion of the Materials Research Laboratories consists of multiple laboratories which are described later in this document. Many of these laboratory facilities are shared with other branches such that a clear division between branches is difficult; this is necessary in the ever-evolving multi-disciplinary field of materials science.
