Programmable Architected Multifunctional Metamaterials and Metastructures

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Increasing global concerns about energy production, environmental pollution, and economy growth demand groundbreaking avenues for highly efficient structural and energy materials. Load-bearing, shape-transforming, energy converting, and autonomous sensing properties should coexist in multipurpose smart materials to unlock an unprecedented material property space for addressing the challenging demands. Multifunctional metamaterials can meet multiple functional requirements and deliver properties beyond what are found in naturally occurring materials. The unrivalled properties of metamaterials are mainly derived from their intricate underlying architecture. Additive manufacturing has emerged as a frontrunner for facile fabrication of mechanical metamaterials. The versatility of 3D printing-assisted fabrication also allows the production of functionalized passive/active ferroelectric materials to realize previously impossible smart metamaterials for tactile/temperature sensors and energy harvesters. The majority of rational designs of metamaterials have relied on intuition. However, tuning the unmatched properties of multifunctional metamaterials, comprised of mechanics and smart material realms, calls for understanding their programmability and size-effect traits. While metamaterials are usually periodic, metabeams/plates do not share the same level of periodicity. These advocate the necessity of developing a self-sufficient theory for designing multifunctional metamaterials/structures. Long-term vision of this research is to develop a platform for systematic, rather than intuitive, design of metamaterials for targeted functionalities. As short-term objectives and with roots in cellular solids and smart materials, we aim at creating programmable, reconfigurable, and size-dependent ferroelectric metamaterials. We inspire from crystallographic symmetry classes, harness elastic instability, exploit multiphysical stimuli, and utilize advanced manufacturing to introduce novel classified multifunctional metamaterials/structures. We resort to delicate topological design of cellular architecture and constitutive hinges, stability analyses, generalized continuum theory, multiphysics simulation, 3D printing, and experimental thermo-electro-mechanical characterization tests. The programmable and tunable architected multifunctional metamaterials/structures will enable offering cutting-edge economic solutions for the realization of next generation resilient smart components. This program provides HQP with well-defined training plans to gain a unique blend of expertise in architectural metamaterial design, non-classical continuum-based modelling, multiscale multiphysics simulation, 3D printing and advanced fabrication, and experimental material characterization. The trained skillful HQP will eventually contribute towards smart material innovation and keep Canada as a leader in additively-manufactured products and piezoelectric devices.