Collaborative Research: HCC: Medium: Computational Design of Complex Fluidic Systems

数字制造和计算设计优化的最新进展为结构、车辆和可穿戴设备的组件如何高效地进行想象、原型设计和部署创造了新的范例。高影响力创新的另一个机会来自于大量包含固体和流体成分的设备，这些设备传统上是由人类工程师根据经验和既定的设计实践制作的；例如喷气发动机、液压泵、过滤系统和医疗植入物，如心脏瓣膜和冠状动脉支架，所有这些都依赖于固体（通常是弹性的）结构和流体介质之间微妙的功能相互作用。该项目将利用纯固体弹性结构（迄今为止一直是此类技术的主要焦点）的计算设计优化的研究势头和经验，将优化驱动设计的范围扩展到流体和流量调节机制。项目成果最终将推动能源效率的创新，提高软机器人平台的功能，并使下一代微流体机制的创建成为可能，包括高效假肢。项目成果的其他广泛影响将来自于主办机构令人兴奋的新课程的开发，而现实世界的吸引力和应用将为吸引学生从事STEM职业的K-12和社区大学提供强大的推广机会。本研究的重点是与包含流体元件的功能装置相关的一些具体挑战。固体/柔顺相的非线性和流体流动的动力学与这些设计任务高度相关，并将被视为算法探索的一个组成部分。非参数化设计方法，可以自由地创建精确的几何细节和复杂的拓扑特征将被探索，动态系统的设计，包括周期或混沌运动或流动，结合瞬态接触/碰撞模式，将被调查。这项工作将建立在pi之前的产品和专业知识的基础上，提供可以处理数千万或数亿个自由度的计算设计框架，因此项目结果可以适应来自多个流程场景和/或有助于整体设计的多个功能特征的多个设计目标的规范。该研究将开发方法和可扩展的计算框架，共同应对这些挑战，这对于为流体机构提供有效和通用的设计平台至关重要。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。

Recent advances in digital fabrication and computational design optimization have created a new paradigm for how efficiently components of structures, vehicles and wearable devices can be imagined, prototyped and deployed. An additional opportunity for high-impact innovation stems from the plethora of devices incorporating both solid and fluid components that human engineers have traditionally crafted relying on experience and established designed practices; examples include jet engines, hydraulic pumps, filtration systems and medical implants such as heart valves and coronary stents, all of which rely on a delicate functional interaction between a solid, often elastic, structure and a fluid medium. This project will leverage research momentum and experience from computational design optimization of purely solid, elastic structures (that have been the dominant focus of such techniques until now), to extend the reach of optimization-driven design to fluid- and flow-modulating mechanisms. Project outcomes will ultimately fuel innovation in energy efficiency, boost the functionality of soft robotic platforms, and enable the creation of next-generation microfluidic mechanisms including in highly effective prosthetics. Additional broad impact for project outcomes will derive from the development of exciting new curricula at the host institutions, while the real-world appeal and applications will provide strong outreach opportunities to K-12 and community colleges that attract students to STEM careers.This research focuses on a number of specific challenges associated with functional devices that incorporate fluidic components. Non-linearity of both the solid/compliant phase and the dynamics of the fluid flow is highly relevant to such design tasks and will be treated as an integral component of algorithmic exploration. Non-parametric design approaches that are free to create accurate geometric details and intricate topological features will be explored, and the design of dynamic systems that include periodic or chaotic motion or flow, in conjunction with transient contact/collision patterns, will be investigated. The work will build on the PIs' prior products and expertise in delivering computational design frameworks that can handle tens or hundreds of millions of degrees of freedom, so that project outcomes can accommodate the specification of multiple design objectives stemming from multiple flow scenarios and/or multiple functional traits that contribute to the overall design. The research will develop methods and a scalable computational framework that jointly address these challenges, which is essential to delivering an effective and versatile design platform for fluidic mechanisms.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.