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Inspired by natural cellular materials such as trabecular bone, lattice structures have been developed as a new type of lightweight material. In this paper we present a novel method to design lattice structures that conform with both the…
In spite of extended recent interest in System Reliability-Based Design Optimization (System RBDO) and life-cycle cost or Risk Optimization (RO), there is a lack of published studies on optimal design of redundant hyperstatic systems with…
Reprogrammable mechanical metamaterials, composed of a lattice of discretely adaptive elements, are emerging as a promising platform for mechanical intelligence. To operate in unknown environments, such structures must go beyond passive…
Elastomers are viscoelastic materials and their properties significantly depend on the loading rate. The actual stress experienced by these materials is the sum of equilibrium and dissipative (inelastic) terms. At very low loading rates we…
Mechanism - collections of rigid elements coupled by perfect hinges which exhibit a zero-energy motion -- motivate the design of a variety of mechanical metamaterials. We significantly enlarge this design space by considering…
Bone is a multiscale heterogeneous materiel of which principal function is to support the body structure and to resist mechanical loading and fractures. Bone strength does not depend only on the quantity and quality of bone which is…
It is important to accurately model materials' properties at lower length scales (micro-level) while translating the effects to the components and/or system level (macro-level) can significantly reduce the amount of experimentation required…
Atomistic deformation simulations in the nominally elastic regime are performed for a model binary glass with strain rates as low as $10^{4}$/sec (corresponding to 0.01 shear strain per 1$\mu$sec). A robust elasticity is revealed that…
This paper presents a computationally efficient method for the optimal design of silica aerogel porous material systems, balancing thermal insulation performance with mechanical stability under stress concentrations. The proposed approach…
A large variety of materials, widely encountered both in engineering applications and in the biological realm, are characterised by a non-vanishing internal stress distribution, even in the absence of external deformations or applied…
Topology optimization (TO) is a well-established methodology for structural design under user-defined constraints, e.g. minimum volume and maximum stiffness. However, such methods have traditionally been applied to static, deterministic…
Replicating and surpassing the autonomy of natural organisms remains a long-standing goal in robotics. Yet most robotic systems have their structure, materials, and control designed separately, in sharp contrast to the co-evolution in…
There is increasing demand for automated systems that can fabricate 3D structures. Robotic spatial extrusion has become an attractive alternative to traditional layer-based 3D printing due to a manipulator's flexibility to print large,…
This work proposes the complete design cycle for several auxetic materials where the cycle consists of three steps (i) the design of the micro-architecture, (ii) the manufacturing of the material and (iii) the testing of the material. We…
In automated manufacturing, robots must reliably assemble parts of various geometries and low tolerances. Ideally, they plan the required motions autonomously. This poses a substantial challenge due to high-dimensional state spaces and…
The capacity to adapt can greatly influence the success of systems that need to compensate for damaged parts, learn how to achieve robust performance in new environments, or exploit novel opportunities that originate from new technological…
Animals can accomplish many incredible behavioral feats across a wide range of operational environments and scales that current robots struggle to match. One explanation for this performance gap is the extraordinary properties of the…
The mystery behind the bird nest's construction is not well understood. Our study focuses on the stability of a self-supporting nest-like structure. Firstly, we derived a stable/unstable phase boundary for the structure at the fixed…
Advanced modern technology and industrial sustainability theme have contributed implementing composite materials for various industrial applications. Green composites are among the desired alternatives for the green products. However, to…
Soft robots promise inherent safety via their material compliance for seamless interactions with humans or delicate environments. Yet, their development is challenging because it requires integrating materials, geometry, actuation, and…