A DCAMM seminar will be presented by
X. Shelly Zhang, Assistant Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering (MechSE)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract:
The rational design and realization of programmable materials and structures play important roles in enabling functional devices, such as actuators, sensors, and robotics. Yet, the use of heuristically developed structural patterns could lead to restricted design space and potential failure to achieve specific target behaviors.
This talk will first introduce a topology optimization approach to inverse design soft mechanical metastructures, which are precisely programmed with a variety of extreme yet function-oriented responses under large deformations. The synthesized metastructures exhibit organic geometries and motions with irregular distribution of different material phases. Within the structure, different hyperelasticmaterials play distinct roles yet seamlessly collaborate through sophisticated deformation mechanisms. In addition, the properties of metamaterials and metastructures typically remain fixed after being designed. To enable reprogrammable behaviors, we introduce a magneto-mechanical topology optimization approach to generate magnetic metamaterials with responses that can be altered by external magnetic fields. The obtained magnetic metastructures exhibit one response under purely mechanical loading, and switch to a distinct response under simultaneous mechanical and applied magnetic fields.
With proposed optimization frameworks and hybrid fabrication, we design and fabricate a library of mechanical and magnetic metastructures that realize a wide range of precisely programmed nonlinear responses, including multi-plateau, switchable deformation, and adaptable snap buckling. These switchable yet programmable mechanical responses are enabled by the interactions among uniquegeometry, large deformations, and magnetic actuation (when applicable). The proposed optimization-driven computational design strategies can be utilized to design and realize multi-functional devices in various applications.
Danish pastry, coffee and tea will be served 15 minutes before the seminar starts.
All interested persons are invited