Mood ring sensors could warn of bridge failure

Scientists are working with mood ring materials as a potential way to minimize and mitigate damage to the nation’s failing infrastructure. Sprinkle some nanoparticles into a batch of clear polymer resin and you get “a smart material that changes color when it is damaged or about to fail, what I call a mood ring material,” explains Cole Brubaker, a doctoral student in civil engineering and part of the team at Vanderbilt University’s Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability (LASIR) developing the new sensing system.