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

数字制造和计算设计优化方面的最新进展为结构、车辆和可穿戴设备的组件的想象、原型和部署创造了一种新的范式。高影响力创新的另一个机会来自人类工程师传统上依靠经验和既定设计实践制作的大量兼具固体和流体成分的设备；例如喷气发动机、液压泵、过滤系统以及心脏瓣膜和冠状动脉支架等医疗植入物，所有这些都依赖于固体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(到目前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构。项目成果最终将推动能源效率方面的创新，提升软机器人平台的功能，并使包括高效假肢在内的下一代微流控机制的创建成为可能。对项目成果的其他广泛影响将来自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程序将为吸引学生进入STEM职业生涯的K-12和社区大学提供强大的外展机会。这项研究集中于与集成流体元件的功能设备相关的一些具体挑战。固体/柔顺相和流体流动动力学的非线性与此类设计任务高度相关，并将被视为算法探索的一个组成部分。将探索可自由创建精确几何细节和复杂拓扑特征的非参数设计方法，并将研究包括周期性或混沌运动或流动以及瞬时接触/碰撞模式的动态系统的设计。这项工作将建立在PI以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，以便项目成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。这项研究将开发共同应对这些挑战的方法和可扩展的计算框架，这对于为流体机械提供有效和通用的设计平台至关重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.