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如何有效地想象、原型化和部署结构、车辆和可穿戴设备的组件创造了新的范例。高影响力创新的另一个机会来自于大量包含固体和流体组件的设备，人类工程师传统上依靠经验和既定的设计实践来制作这些设备;例子包括喷气发动机、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。该项目将利用纯固体弹性结构的计算设计优化的研究动力和经验（到目前为止，这一直是此类技术的主要焦点），将优化驱动设计的范围扩展到流体和流量调节机制。项目成果将最终推动能源效率的创新，提高软机器人平台的功能，并实现下一代微流体机制的创建，包括高效的假肢。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将为K-12和社区大学提供强大的推广机会，吸引学生进入STEM职业。这项研究重点关注与包含流体组件的功能设备相关的一些具体挑战。 固体/顺应相和流体流动的动态的非线性与这样的设计任务高度相关，并且将被视为算法探索的不可分割的组成部分。 非参数设计方法，可以自由地创建准确的几何细节和复杂的拓扑特征将被探索，并动态系统，包括周期性或混沌运动或流动，结合瞬态接触/碰撞模式的设计将被研究。 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自由度的计算设计框架，以便项目成果可以适应多个设计目标的规范，这些目标来自于多个流程场景和/或有助于整体设计的多个功能特性。该研究将开发方法和一个可扩展的计算框架，共同应对这些挑战，这是必不可少的提供一个有效的和多功能的设计平台的流体mechanism.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得的支持，通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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.