About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2027 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Nanocomposite Materials: Innovations in Design, Fabrication, and Applications
|
| Presentation Title |
Design and Optimization of Bioinspired Composites: Functionally Graded Cellular Materials with Tunable Impact Energy Absorption |
| Author(s) |
Joseph Schlager, Changyong C. Cao |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Changyong C. Cao |
| Abstract Scope |
Lightweight structures that absorb impact energy are central to protective, aerospace, and automotive systems, yet their design requires balancing dissipation against mass and transmitted force. Nature solves this in the hedgehog spine - a functionally graded cellular composite in which a dense cortex is reinforced by longitudinal stringers and periodic transverse plates. We recast this architecture as a systematically optimizable, 3D-printable composite and formulate its design space along two factors, structure and material, resolved into four subfactors: cell shape and wall-junction connectivity, unit-cell geometry, constituent properties, and material spatial distribution. Using a design-of-experiments sweep and a two-scale workflow - representative-volume-element homogenization for effective properties, then explicit dynamic-impact simulation - we optimize a rebound-complete specific-energy-absorption metric that corrects a common mid-rebound bias. A single-material graded-density surrogate emulates multi-material grading in a single printable polymer, including high-performance polymer nanocomposites, enabling experimental validation, whereas true multi-material designs are treated as validated predictions. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Composites, Additive Manufacturing, Mechanical Properties |