CAREER: Novel Homogenization Approaches to Study the Electromechanical Behavior and Stability of Soft Electrostrictive Composites

该学院早期职业发展(Career)计划奖项的目标是直接从微观性能和微结构方面调查软电致伸缩复合材料(SECS)的机电行为和稳定性。SECS是一类新型的电活性材料，具有在低强度机械和电刺激下发生大的可逆变形(超过100%)的独特能力。重点将集中在发展有限变形和有限电场作用下的随机、非线性弹性、介电复合材料的迭代均匀化技术。尽管这些技术解释了精细的微观细节，但这些技术将提供一个易于处理的分析框架-通过各种类型的哈密顿-雅可比方程-来描述、解释和预测SEC的强耦合和非线性响应，以及它们的机械/电气故障的开始。在技术层面上，这项工作将为自下而上设计SEC产品和设备提供量化基础，这些产品和设备将在医药和能源等重要领域实现许多高端应用，并有可能显著提高我们的生活质量。目前缺乏这样的基础，到目前为止，阻碍了这些非凡材料的实际使用，例如，在人造肌肉、能量收集器和药物输送系统中，这些本来被确定为有希望的应用。该项目将包括与阿根廷和法国机构的国际合作。它将为研究生和本科生提供培训，并将在高等教育之前让高中生参与几项促进科学和工程兴趣的活动。

The objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award is the investigation of the electromechanical behavior and stability of soft electrostrictive composites (SECs), directly in terms of their microscopic properties and microstructures. SECs are a new class of electroactive materials with the unique capability to greatly and reversibly deform (more than 100%) in response to low-intensity mechanical and electrical stimuli. The focus will be on developing iterative homogenization techniques for random, nonlinear elastic, dielectric composites subjected to finite deformations and finite electric fields. In spite of accounting for fine microscopic details, these techniques will provide a tractable analytical framework - via various types of Hamilton-Jacobi equations - to describe, explain, and predict the strongly coupled and nonlinear response of SECs, and the onset of their mechanical/electrical failure. At the technological level, this work will provide a quantitative basis to design, from the bottom up, SEC products and devices that will enable many high-end applications in significant fields such as medicine and energy, with the potential to considerably improve the quality of our lives. The current lack of such a basis has thus far hampered the actual use of these remarkable materials, for instance, in artificial muscles, energy harvesters, and drug delivery systems, which have otherwise been identified as promising applications. This project will include international collaborations with institutions in Argentina and France. It will provide training for graduate and undergraduate students, and will engage high school students in several activities promoting interest in science and engineering prior to higher education.