Related papers: Architecting materials for extremal stiffness, yie…

This paper introduces a heuristic topology optimization framework for thin-walled, 2D extruded lattice structures subject to complex high-speed loading. The proposed framework optimizes the wall thickness distribution in the lattice cross…

In recent years, new methods have been developed to synthesize complex porous and micro-structured geometry in a variety of ways. In this work, we take these approaches one step further and present these methods as an efficacious design…

Additive manufacturing methods together with topology optimization have enabled the creation of multiscale structures with controlled spatially-varying material microstructure. However, topology optimization or inverse design of such…

Structural hierarchy, in which materials possess distinct features on multiple length scales, is ubiquitous in nature; diverse biological materials, such as bone, cellulose, and muscle, have as many as ten hierarchical levels. Structural…

Material nonlinearities such as hyperelasticity, viscoelasticity, and plasticity have recently emerged as design paradigms for metamaterials based on buckling. These metamaterials exhibit properties such as shape morphing, transition waves,…

We study the plastic yielding of disordered media using the perfectly plastic random fuse model. The yield surfaces are shown to be different from those obtained minimizing the sum of the local yield thresholds, i.e. the so-called minimum…

Preemptive identification of potential failure under loading of engineering structures is a critical challenge. Our study presents an innovative approach to built-in pre-failure indicators within multiscale structural designs utilizing the…

Brittle materials fail catastrophically. In consequence of their limited flaw-tolerance, failure occurs by localized fracture and is typically a dynamic process. Recently, experiments on epithelial cell monolayers have revealed that this…

Porous structures such as trabecular bone are widely seen in nature. These structures exhibit superior mechanical properties whilst being lightweight. In this paper, we present a method to generate bone-like porous structures as lightweight…

When a thin elastic sheet crumples, the elastic energy condenses into a network of folding lines and point vertices. These folds and vertices have elastic energy densities much greater than the surrounding areas, and most of the work…

High strength and high toughness are usually mutually exclusive in engineering materials. Improving the toughness of strong but brittle materials like ceramics thus relies on the introduction of a metallic or polymeric ductile phase to…

Incremental stiffness characterizes the variation of a material's force response to a small deformation change. Typically materials have an incremental stiffness that is fixed and positive, but recent technologies, such as super-lenses, low…

Multi-phase material are frequently applied in a wide variety of products, as they posses a unique set of properties by combining two or more distinct phases at the level of the microstructure. Although the macroscopic stiffness and…

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…

We introduce a lattice model able to describe damage and yielding in heterogeneous materials ranging from brittle to ductile ones. Ductile fracture surfaces, obtained when the system breaks once the strain is completely localized, are shown…

The level-set method of topology optimization is used to design isotropic two-phase periodic multifunctional composites in three dimensions. One phase is stiff and insulating whereas the other is conductive and mechanically compliant. The…

In this paper we present a mixed projection- and density-based topology optimization approach. The aim is to combine the benefits of both parametrizations: the explicit geometric representation provides specific controls on certain design…

Inverse design of high-resolution and fine-detailed 3D lightweight mechanical structures is notoriously expensive due to the need for vast computational resources and the use of very fine-scaled complex meshes. Furthermore, in designing for…

One of the biggest perceived challenges in building megastructures, such as the space elevator, is the unavailability of materials with sufficient tensile strength. The presumed necessity of very strong materials stems from a design…

Hierarchical microstructures are often invoked to explain the high resilience and fracture toughness of biological materials such as bone and nacre. Biomimetic material models inspired by those structural arrangements face the obvious…