Meta-material adhesives for improved performance and functionalisation of bondlines

可持续发展目标是在旨在建立可持续、但具有竞争力的循环经济的欧洲政策范围内制定的。最近，在关于欧洲绿色协议的通信中，欧盟委员会承诺通过一项新的循环经济行动计划，以加快和继续向循环经济过渡。这种承诺在材料科学、生产和开发的新方法中得到了很大的反映，它是由新兴添加剂制造等技术推动的。在两个关键方面，新材料技术的开发将在塑造这一亟需的绿色转型方面发挥决定性作用；先进材料的开发，其可制造性在对功能性的高要求和提高生产链的可持续性之间取得最佳平衡。将重点放在自身的功能上，例如在运输、建筑和能源发电行业的材料方面，以及对更好、更便宜和可持续材料的前所未有的需求是及时的。然而，保持或进一步提高现有材料的性能和可靠性，包括轻质复合材料、金属合金或陶瓷，是这一当前范式的核心挑战。对于许多应用来说，连接相似或不同的材料是必不可少的，而胶接是经典连接方法的一种有吸引力的替代方法，导致新的复合材料具有更多的功能和更好的机械和物理性能。粘接工艺和粘合剂广泛用于工程结构的一次粘接和二次粘接。然而，一些悬而未决的问题仍然存在，即如何利用粘结剂粘结线的潜力来真正促进可持续工程结构的发展--那些促进结构部件的预防、再利用和再利用的工程结构。本研究项目建议解决这些悬而未决的问题，并推荐用于可持续结构粘结的创新材料和结构概念、新的建模技术和新的实验方法。该项目有多个目标，需要采取跨学科的方法来解决每一个目标。主要目标是在粘接框架内开发机械超材料的概念，并为可设计和可调的粘合线开发解决方案，即“超粘合剂”。“超粘合剂”的概念将通过将设计良好的超材料晶格应用到粘合剂中来进行研究。研究将跨越从材料到结构部件的几个尺度级别，并将回答具体的基础研究问题，例如：(I)超材料的比例特性是否以可预测的方式影响粘结线的断裂韧性；(Ii)失效特征(从几何失效到材料失效)将如何受到影响，以及具有架构化的粘结线将如何影响载荷传递；(Iii)为了提高结构的可持续性，可以以何种方式和在多大程度上将超粘结粘结线功能化，以服务于前述的预防/再利用和再利用。该奖学金将允许申请人使用和扩大他在机械超材料领域的知识，以处理悬而未决的问题，并推荐创新的材料和结构概念，新的建模技术，以及可持续结构粘合的新实验方法。

Sustainable development goals are formulated within European policies aiming at a sustainable, and yet competitive, circular economy. Most recently, in the Communication on the European Green Deal, the European Commission committed to the adoption of a new Circular Economy Action Plan to accelerate and continue the transition towards a circular economy. This commitment is heavily reflected in novel approaches to materials science, production, and development, and it is driven by technologies such as emerging additive manufacturing. There are two critical fronts in which the development of new materials' technologies will play a decisive role in shaping this much needed green transition; the development of advanced materials whose manufacturability strikes an optimal balance between high demands for functionality, and the improvement of sustainability in the production chain. Focus on the functionality in its own right, e.g., in materials for the transport, construction and energy generation industries, together with unprecedented need for better, cheaper, and sustainable materials is timely. However, maintaining or further increasing the performance and reliability of existing materials, including lightweight composite materials, metal alloys or ceramics, presents challenges at the heart of this current paradigm. For many applications joining similar or dissimilar materials is indispensable, while adhesive bonding is an attractive alternative to classical joining methods, leading to new composites with more functions, and better mechanical and physical performance. Bonding processes and adhesives are used in a wide range of engineering structures for primary and secondary bonding. However, certain unresolved questions remain open regarding the exploitation of the potential of adhesive bondlines to truly contribute to the development of sustainable engineering structures-those promoting prevention, reuse and repurposing of structural components. This research project proposes to deal with these unresolved questions and to recommend innovative material and structural concepts, new modelling techniques, and novel experimental methods for sustainable structural bonding. The project has multiple objectives, necessitating an interdisciplinary approach for addressing each one of them. The main goal is to exploit the concept of Mechanical Metamaterials within the framework of adhesive bonding and to develop solutions for architected and tuneable bondlines, namely "meta-adhesives". The "meta-adhesive" concept will be investigated by implementing well designed metamaterial lattices into the adhesive bulk. The investigation will span in several scale levels, from the material to the structural component and will respond to specific basic research questions such as: (i) whether the metamaterial scaling properties affect the bondline fracture toughness in a predictable manner; (ii) how the features of failure (from geometrical to material failure) will be affected and how load transfer will be influenced by having architected bondlines; (iii) in which manner and to what extent can the meta-adhesive bondline be functionalised in order to serve the aforementioned prevention/reuse and repurposing for improved sustainability in structures. This fellowship will allow the applicant to use and expand his knowledge in the field of Mechanical Metamaterials to deal with unresolved questions and to recommend innovative material and structural concepts, new modelling techniques, and novel experimental methods for sustainable structural bonding.