CAREER: A Holistic Framework for Designing Multifunctional Materials and Structures Using Computational Optimization Methods

该学院早期职业发展计划（Career）奖通过改进先进轻质、环保和高效材料和结构的设计方法，为国家的繁荣做出贡献，以应对重大的全球挑战。该奖项支持基础研究，通过能够同时优化材料成分和结构的新多物理场算法，为复杂的多功能结构和材料设计制定新的整体框架，从而扩展传统的单一功能材料和结构设计。这些材料对许多技术先进的生物医学、清洁能源、航空航天和可移动电子应用至关重要。此计划提供以设计为主题的教育和外展活动，以提高公众知识，吸引有才华的学生从事设计领域的STEM职业。该教育计划通过将几个基于“设计哲学”的模块化讲座整合到工程系的设计课程中，改善了与设计相关的教育活动。该项目还针对学业上有风险和代表性不足的少数民族（URM）学生，通过校外STEM教育计划减少辍学。克服当前多功能材料和结构的设计限制是具有挑战性的，因为i)用于预测此类设计性能的数学模型是复杂的，ii)此类模型的数值解决方案在计算上是昂贵的，iii)它需要跨学科/多物理场设计方法，能够在多个尺度上剪裁材料，以平衡相反的设计驱动因素。为了应对这些挑战，该CAREER项目将创建一个3-M（多物理场、多尺度、多功能）设计框架，建立能够优化材料系统中矛盾功能的新算法。这个新框架的核心是高效的降阶模型（ROMs）和基于机器学习（ML）的代理模型，这些模型集成到多物理场/多尺度优化方法中，以实现具有所需多功能特性的材料的高效设计。在这个项目中创建的框架将允许通过平衡相互冲突的设计需求来定制多功能材料，否则使用单一功能的设计策略是无法实现的。为了证明新框架的有效性，3m设计框架将用于设计具有优异性能的结构电池（sbc）和微血管（MVCs）复合材料。sbc在生产用于汽车、航空和机器人工业的无质量电池方面显示出巨大的潜力。主动冷却mvc使纤维增强聚合物复合材料在高温汽车、航空航天和微电子应用中成为可能。3m设计框架与材料无关，可用于设计不同的多功能材料，这些材料可能具有相反的设计要求。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。

This Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award contributes to national prosperity by improving methods for the design of advanced lightweight, environmentally friendly, and highly-efficient materials and structures to address major global challenges. The award supports fundamental research to extend traditional design of single-function materials and structures by formulating a new holistic framework for design of intricate multifunctional structures and materials through new multiphysics algorithms that are able to optimize material constituents and architectures simultaneously. Such materials are critical to many technologically advanced biomedical, clean energy, aerospace, and transportable electronics applications. This project offers design-themed educational and outreach activities to enhance public knowledge and attract talented students to STEM careers in the design area. The educational plan improves design-related educational activities by integrating several modular lectures based on the “philosophy of design” into design courses offered in engineering departments. The project also targets academically at-risk and underrepresented minority (URM) students to reduce school dropout via an out-of-school-time (OST) STEM education program. Overcoming current design limitations for multifunctional materials and structures is challenging because i) the mathematical models that are used to predict the performance of such designs are complex, ii) numerical solutions for such models are computationally expensive, and iii) it requires interdisciplinary/multiphysics design methods capable of tailoring materials at multiple scales to balance opposing design drivers. To address these challenges, this CAREER project will create a 3-M (Multiphysics, Multiscale, Multifunctional) Design framework that establishes new algorithms capable of optimizing paradoxical functions in a material system. The cores of this new framework are efficient reduced-order models (ROMs) and machine learning (ML)-based surrogate models integrated into multiphysics/multiscale optimization methods to enable the efficient design of such materials with desired multifunctional properties. The framework created in this project will allow tailoring multifunctional materials by balancing among conflicting design requirements that could not otherwise be achieved using single-function design strategies. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the new framework, the 3-M Design framework will be used to design structural battery (SBCs) and microvascular (MVCs) composites with superior properties. SBCs show significant potential in producing mass-less batteries used in the automotive, aviation, and robotics industries. Actively cooled MVCs make it possible to use fiber-reinforced polymer composites in high-temperature automobile, aerospace, and microelectronic applications. The 3-M Design framework is material independent and can be used for the design of different multifunctional materials that may have opposing design requirements.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.