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In various applications, design problems involving structures and compliant mechanisms experience fluidic pressure loads. During topology optimization of such design problems, these loads adapt their direction and location with the…
A topology optimization formulation including a model of the layer-by-layer additive manufacturing (AM) process is considered. Defined as a multi-objective minimization problem, the formulation accounts for the performance and cost of both…
The production of concrete generates roughly 8% of anthropogenic CO2 globally, largely because of the massive quantities that are manufactured. New design methods must be developed and deployed to improve the material efficiency of…
A growing or compressed thin elastic sheet adhered to a rigid substrate can exhibit a buckling instability, forming an inward hump. Our study shows that the strip morphology depends on the delicate balance between the compression energy and…
We investigate interface failure of model materials representing architected thin films in contact with heterogeneous substrates. We find that, while systems with statistically isotropic distributions of impurities derive their fracture…
Designing strong and robust bio-inspired structures requires an understanding of how function arises from the architecture and geometry of materials found in nature. We draw from trabecular bone, a lightweight bone tissue that exhibits a…
Lattice structures, known for their superior mechanical properties, are widely used in industries such as aerospace, automotive, and biomedical. Their advantages primarily lie in the interconnected struts at the micro-scale. The robust…
To model and quantify the variability in plasticity and failure of additively manufactured metals due to imperfections in their microstructure, we have developed uncertainty quantification methodology based on pseudo marginal likelihood and…
Mechanical metamaterials with engineered failure properties typically rely on periodic unit cell geometries or bespoke microstructures to achieve their unique properties. We demonstrate that intelligent use of disorder in metamaterials…
Entangled matter displays unusual and attractive properties and mechanisms: tensile strength, capabilities for assembly and disassembly, damage tolerance. While some of the attributes and mechanisms share some traits with traditional…
Friction is fundamental to mechanical stability across scales, from geological faults and architectural structures to granular materials and animal feet. We study the mechanical stability of a minimal friction-stabilized structure composed…
The mechanical response of yield-stress materials below the yield point remains a subject of debate. Two of the most widely used constitutive models for these materials offer fundamentally conflicting views: one permits plastic flow at all…
Natural hard composites like human bone possess a combination of strength and toughness that exceeds that of their constituents and of many engineered composites. This augmentation is attributed to their complex hierarchical structure,…
We propose a novel approach to optimize the design of heterogeneous materials, with the goal of enhancing their effective fracture toughness under mode-I loading. The method employs a Gaussian processes-based Bayesian optimization framework…
In this paper, we study the response of 2D framed structures made of rectangular cells, to the sudden removal of columns. We employ a simulation algorithm based on the Discrete Element Method, where the structural elements are represented…
This paper presents a density-based topology optimization method for designing three-dimensional (3D) compliant mechanisms and loadbearing structures with design-dependent pressure loading. Instead of interface-tracking techniques, the…
Hierarchically designed mechanical metamaterials involve nested levels of structural organization, mimicking natural structures (such as bones, wood, and bird feathers) to create advanced functional materials. Compositional hierarchy, a…
The classification of materials into insulators and conductors has been shaken up by the discovery of topological insulators that conduct robustly at the edge but not in the bulk. In mechanics, designating a material as insulating or…
We investigate how material rigidity acts as a key control parameter for the failure of solids under stress. In both experiments and simulations, we demonstrate that material failure can be continuously tuned by varying the underlying…
We introduce a computational framework for the topology optimization of cellular structures with spatially varying architecture, which is applied to functionally graded truss lattices under quasistatic loading. We make use of a first-order…