CAREER: Tough Architected Concrete Materials: Bio-inspired Design, Manufacturing, and Mechanics

该学院职业发展（Career）奖将支持对混凝土设计和断裂行为的基础研究，这些设计和断裂行为被称为建筑材料。混凝土是用于建造民用和能源基础设施的最常见的人造商品。然而，如果没有钢筋，混凝土的抗开裂和突然破坏能力很低。为了改善水泥基材料在力学响应方面的缺陷，该项目将重点了解和设计用于关键民用基础设施和弹性结构应用的更强的建筑混凝土。通过应用天然强材料的概念，如珍珠母贝（珍珠）和含有适度成分的骨头，新型混凝土复合材料将具有增强的机械性能，优于日常的非增强混凝土。通过使用激光工艺和先进的增材制造设计和分析新型建筑材料，该项目支持更坚固、更具抗损伤能力的基础设施组件的新应用，从而增强公共安全和繁荣。该项目将结合实验、计算建模和分析方法，为研究和设计这些材料创造新的方法。将研究与教育和推广活动相结合，包括(i)软件开发，（ii）竞赛用混凝土独木舟的增材制造，（iii）生物启发设计课程模块的开发，以及（iv）参与双语的Día de La Ciencia/科学日项目，将促进工程师、用户和学生之间的使用、采用和教育。这个项目的目标是理解和设计建筑混凝土的断裂行为，其灵感来自于珍珠层的砖和砂浆排列和皮质骨中骨的管状排列。该研究项目将为非钢筋混凝土的设计、制造和工程提供新的假设的生物材料增韧机制，以增强普通和纤维增强混凝土的延展性和断裂韧性为基准。为了实现这些成果，本研究整合了以下目标：(i)研究天然材料的潜在增韧机制，并为设计合成对应物和设计硬胶凝和软超弹性成分的配方开发生物启发原则；（ii）创造有效的制造工艺，使制造具有特定内部缺陷的形态定制的硬-软多材料组件成为可能；（iii）为推进设计和制造的增材工艺开发研究和教育软件和工具路径算法，（iv）开发合适的实验来检查结构材料和软硬成分界面的断裂韧性和强度，以及(v)开发一个数值稳健的本构框架，用于模拟软硬材料结构组件的断裂行为。该框架将利用相场方法来捕捉软、硬材料内部的裂纹扩展，并辅以界面的黏结区模型。该项目将为理解、设计和预测坚韧结构复合材料的机械性能奠定基础，并将为抗裂应用提供新的研究途径和设计可能性。该项目将使PI能够提高断裂力学方面的知识基础，并在设计和先进制造方面建立长期的职业生涯。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Faculty Career Development (CAREER) award will support fundamental research on the design and fracture behavior of concrete with purposeful arrangements known as architected materials. Concrete is the most common human-made commodity used to build civil and energy infrastructure. However, without reinforcement, concrete suffers from low resistance to cracking and abrupt failure. To improve the shortcomings in mechanical response of cement-based materials, this project will focus on understanding and engineering stronger architected concrete for use in critical civil infrastructure and resilient structural applications. By applying concepts from naturally occurring strong materials such as mother-of-pearl (nacre) and bone that contain modest constituents, new types of concrete composites will be engineered with enhanced mechanical properties, superior to everyday unreinforced concrete counterparts. Through the design and analysis of novel construction materials using a laser process and advanced additive manufacturing, this project supports new applications of stronger and more damage-resilient infrastructure components that can enhance public safety and prosperity. The project will combine experimentation, computational modeling, and analytical approaches to create new methods for studying and designing these materials. Integration of research with educational and outreach activities, including (i) software development, (ii) additive manufacturing of concrete canoe for competition, (iii) development of a bio-inspired design course module, and (iv) participation in the bilingual Día de La Ciencia/Science Day program, will facilitate the use, adoption, and education among engineers, users, and students.The goal of this project is to understand and engineer the fracture behavior of architected concrete inspired by the brick-and-mortar arrangement of nacre and tubular arrangement of osteons in cortical bone. The research program will inform a new understanding of hypothesized toughening mechanisms from biological materials for the design, fabrication, and engineering of unreinforced concrete with enhanced ductility and fracture toughness benchmarked against ordinary and fiber-reinforced counterparts. To achieve these outcomes, the research integrates the following objectives: (i) study the underlying toughening mechanisms in natural materials and develop bio-inspired principles for design of synthetic counterparts and engineering the formulations of hard cementitious and soft hyperelastic constituents, (ii) create efficient manufacturing processes that enable fabrication of morphologically tailored hard-soft multi-material assemblies with purposeful internal defects, (iii) develop research and educational software and toolpath algorithms for additive processes that advance the design and fabrication, (iv) develop suitable experimentation for examining fracture toughness and strength of the architected materials and hard-soft constituents’ interfaces, and (v) develop a numerically robust constitutive framework for modeling fracture behavior in architected assemblies of soft and hard materials. The framework will utilize the phase-field approach to capture crack propagation within the bulk of the soft and hard materials, supplemented with a cohesive-zone model for the interfaces. The project will develop a foundation for understanding, engineering, and predicting the mechanical performance of tough architected composites and will generate new research avenues and design possibilities for crack-resilient applications. The project will allow the PI to advance the knowledge base in fracture mechanics and establish his long-term career in design and advanced manufacturing.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.