Designing Complex Structures Enabled by Advanced Manufacturing

过去三十年是制造技术快速发展的黄金时代。例如，我们可以使用立体光刻，激光烧结和其他形式的3D打印从聚合物，金属或陶瓷制造几乎任何形状。先进的纤维复合材料可以通过自动纤维放置（AFP）制造高度定制的纤维配置。脉冲电沉积使几乎任何几何形状的涂层具有超高性能的纳米晶体金属。由于这些和其他先进的制造技术促进了设计的灵活性，工程师们已经能够设计出轻量级、高效的结构，并为特定的应用进行高度定制。在短期内，许多先进的制造工艺将被用来复制传统技术的产出；这远不能释放先进制造业的非凡前景。先进的制造技术将在产品被重新设计以利用新制造技术带来的新可能性时大放异彩。当先进的制造技术得到有效应用时，为满足特定的应用需求而精心定制的结构和产品是可行的。由于先进的制造技术提供了巨大的设计灵活性，这种重新设计必须通过计算方法来实现，从而使人类设计师能够管理大量的设计变量。这是我们工作的重点。我们正在探索优化使用3D打印方法制造的结构的计算方法，同时考虑到3D打印系统的材料可变性。对于纤维复合材料，我们正在创建系统，帮助设计师配置使用AFP制成的复合材料，使其轻、强、硬，并精确满足复杂的结构要求。我们在混合纳米金属结构方面的工作包括表征这些新材料系统的机械行为，并创建计算工具来帮助设计这些复杂的系统。我们研究的影响将是设计师可以使用纳米金属电沉积、先进纤维放置和3D打印来创造产品的显著改进。

The past thirty years have been a golden era for rapid improvements in manufacturing technology. As examples, we can fabricate nearly any shape from polymer, metal or ceramic using stereolithography, laser sintering, and other forms of 3D printing. Advanced fibre composites can be manufactured with exceptionally highly tailored fibre configurations through automated fibre placement (AFP). Pulsed electrodeposition enables coating almost any arbitrary geometry with ultra-high performance nanocrystalline metals. Because of the design flexibility facilitated by these and other advanced manufacturing techniques, engineers have been enabled to design lightweight, efficient structures that are highly customized for specific applications. In the near term, many advanced manufacturing processes will be used to duplicate the output of conventional technologies; this will not come close to unlocking the exceptional promise of advanced manufacturing. Where advanced manufacturing technology will shine is when products are dramatically redesigned to exploit the new possibilities enabled by new manufacturing techniques. Structures and products that are finely tailored to meet specific application requirements are feasible when advanced manufacturing techniques are used effectively. Because of the immense design flexibility available due to advanced manufacturing, such redesigns must be informed by computational methods that allow a human designer to manage an enormous number of design variables. This is the focus of our work. We are exploring computational methods for optimizing structures that are fabricated using 3D printing methods, while accounting for the material variability that is characteristic of 3D printed systems. For fibre composites, were are creating systems that will help designers to configure composites made using AFP so that they are light, strong, stiff and meet complicated structural requirement precisely. Our work in hybrid nanometal structures involves characterizing the mechanical behaviour of these new material systems and creating computational tools to help design these complex systems. The impact of our research will be dramatic improvements in the products designers can create using nanometal electrodeposition, advanced fibre placement and 3D printing.