Multi-Material 3D Printer for Design and Manufacturing of Advanced Architected Multifunctional Materials

为了减少能源浪费，减轻对化石燃料和可再生资源产生的能源管理不善造成的环境影响，下一代先进材料需要轻量化和多功能。受天然材料的启发，这些材料表现出骨骼和/或其成分的分层排列，本研究旨在应用先进的制造技术和设计原则来创造多种类型的多功能材料。一种特定材料功能的增强通常伴随着另一种功能的退化，例如在能量耗散/韧性和刚度/强度、热/电绝缘和强度、轻量化和抗弯刚度之间的权衡。性能权衡限制了具有多种理想功能的先进材料的创造，并在材料属性空间中创造了无法实现的领域。在3D打印的推动下，材料的微观结构可以在“建筑材料方法”中进行设计，以推动多物理材料的性能超越性能权衡。从各种生物材料中确定的结构设计元素中学习，细胞（在巨嘴鸟喙和小梁骨中），梯度（在牙齿/牙釉质结和鱿鱼喙中）和分层（在鲍鱼珍珠层和海绵针状物中）设计原则将在分层长度尺度中使用，以开发出整体硬和软聚合物的架构多功能超材料。在分层建筑材料中集成多种设计原则不仅可以打破性能权衡，而且还可能产生具有多种增强功能（例如热机械，声学，渗透性和能量收集性能）的新型先进材料。然而，除了麦吉尔大学提供的世界级计算和实验设施来表征这些先进材料外，能够同时制造各种材料（例如刚性到柔性和耐用到高温）的精确3D打印技术至关重要。为了实现最先进的结构多功能材料，具有合理设计的分层微架构，将通过NSERC RTI资助获得尖端的PolyJet多材料3D打印机。所要求的增材制造技术能够培训建筑材料领域的众多hqp，并允许对材料微/介观结构与先进材料多功能性能之间的关系进行全面的多学科研究。这项研究的结果将用于创建具有可调特性的创新多功能系统，用于智能结构、软机器人、热管理、声学以及从水和空气中去除污染物，以使加拿大的经济和环境受益。

Next generation of advanced materials requires to be lightweight and multifunctional in order to reduce energy waste and to mitigate environmental impacts caused by mismanagement of energy produced by fossil fuels and renewable resources. Inspired by natural materials, which exhibit skeletal and/or hierarchical arrangements of their constituents, this research aims at applying an advanced manufacturing technique and design principles to create multiple classes of multifunctional materials. Enhancement of a specific material functionality is commonly accompanied by deterioration of another functionality, such as trade-off between energy dissipation/toughness and stiffness/strength, thermal/electrical insulation and strength, and lightweighting and flexural stiffness. The performance trade-offs limit the creation of advanced materials that possess multiple desirable functionalities and make unattainable domains in a material property space. Facilitated by 3D printing, the material microstructure can be engineered in “architected material approach” to push multiphysical material properties beyond the performance trade-offs. Learning from structural design elements identified amongst a variety of biological materials, cellular (in toucan beaks and trabecular bones), gradient (in tooth dental/enamel junction and squid beak), and layered (in Abalone nacre and sea sponge spicule) design principles will be used here in hierarchical length scales to develop architected multifunctional metamaterials out of monolithic hard and soft polymers. Integrating multiple design principles in hierarchical architected materials can not only break the performance trade-offs, but also potentially can produce novel advanced materials with multiple enhanced functionalities (e.g. thermomechanical, acoustics, permeability, and energy harvesting properties). However, aside from world-class computational and experimental facilities available at McGill to characterize these advanced materials, a precise 3D printing technology capable of simultaneous manufacturing of a wide range of materials (e.g. rigid to flexible and durable to high temperature) is essential. To realize the state-of-the-art architected multifunctional materials, with rationally-designed hierarchical microarchitectures, a cutting-edge PolyJet multi-material 3D printer will be acquired through NSERC RTI grant. The requested additive manufacturing technology enables training a multitude of HQPs in the field of architected materials and allows conducting a comprehensive multidisciplinary study on the relationship between material micro/mesoarchitecture and the multifunctional performance of advanced materials. The findings of this research will be used to create innovative multifunctional systems with tunable properties for applications in intelligent structures, soft robotics, thermal management, acoustics, and removal of contaminants from water and air in order to benefit both Canada's economy and environment.