Advanced Integrated Design Optimization Method to Realize Ultrasonic-Phase-Change Actuated Soft Materials

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The goal of this project is to enable the optimal design and fabrication of a material for soft robotic applications. Soft robots have potential for functionality, versatility, adaptability, and safety exceeding that of traditional robotic systems. However, it is challenging to create materials capable of supplying the forces and motion required for soft robotics. This research will create a new method for optimally designing and fabricating advanced shape-changing materials that can be used in soft robotic applications. Like in biological systems, shape change will be encoded within the architecture of the material system. The design technique to be pioneered in this research will establish this encoding in a manner tailored to the specific robotic system problem. Outcomes of this study will enable more advanced soft robotic systems with capabilities beyond what is possible with current technology. This research will enable to novel technologies such as micro-robotic vehicles, bio-inspired soft robots, and micro-propulsion devices. The project will prepare students for careers designing and optimizing advanced soft robotic systems. It also will yield new educational modules to promote training in this area.The objective of this research is to create an optimization method to enable a tailored design of soft material and soft robotic systems based on a novel actuation modality. The research approach is to formulate multi-scale topology optimization for designing a soft material system with different sizes and geometries of embedded fluid cavities that change phase when certain cavities undergo local resonances induced by propagating narrowband ultrasonic waves. Five primary research tasks will be investigated. First, this project will begin with multi-physics modeling to characterize the constitutive relationship that governs ultrasonic wave excitation with phase-change actuation, considering different geometries and material properties of the soft structure, cavities, and in-fill liquid. Second, multi-scale topology optimization will be formulated, and coupled with the finite element model from the first task, for designing the material architecture to optimize for desired shape change. Third, additive manufacturing coupled with liquid infill during prototyping will enable the realization of these optimized multi-scale structures. This will then be experimentally validated for shape change by ultrasonic-phase-change. Having demonstrated proof-of-concept and fourth, multi-objective topology optimization will output solutions that will enable the entire structure to attain multiple states of motions (i.e., displacement positions, such as various degrees and angles of bending of a long, slender structure). The final task integrates the advances from all previous tasks to fabricate optimized, multi-phase, soft prototypes that can be actuated to achieve different motions. This project will lead to the first multi-scale topology optimization for smart material-structural systems, linking directly the actuation material design to achieve the desired motion at the structural scale.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.