CAREER: Reconfigurable Dynamic Metamaterials Interacting with Flowing Fluids

The ability to engineer reconfigurable metamaterials that efficiently interact with flowing fluids can revolutionize the design and operation of a wide range of medical and robotic devices, from self-reconfigurable cardiovascular prostheses, to passively controlled soft valves and deformable soft robots. These devices often operate in high-energy content environments, with unsteady flowing fluids, but no technology exists to enable them to harvest and redirect this energy to perform distributed actuation efficiently and autonomously, without relying on external sources of energy. A compelling paradigm for achieving such vision is to use multistable metamaterials that store and selectively release energy through nonlinear transition waves -- these large amplitude waves sequentially switch elements from one stable state to another. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant will support research to build the analytical and experimental foundations for flow-responsive multistable metamaterials that manifest tunable dynamic properties and perform desirable tasks by harnessing fluid-structure interactions. These metamaterials will form building blocks for designing dynamic systems that sustain targeted functionalities under fluidic stimuli. This CAREER project will carry out an ambitious plan for integrating research and education and for developing innovative strategies for public outreach that showcase the societal benefits of the field of dynamic metamaterials and spark interest among high school students. By combining mechanical metamaterials and fluid flow environments, this research will show how fluid-structure interactions and transition waves can be leveraged to efficiently achieve desired dynamic behaviors in both dynamic systems and flow fields. With a combination of analytical, numerical, and experimental methods, fluid-metastructure interactions will be used as a twofold “dynamic knob” to (1) manipulate shape reconfigurations in multistable metamaterials for actuation purposes and to (2) control fluid fluxes through transition wavefronts in metamaterials. Reprogrammable dynamic properties and self-regulating flow capabilities will be coupled to passively obtain rigidity on demand and distributed actuation. This research will represent a milestone towards the development of future engineered structures with unprecedented tunable dynamic properties and flow-induced shape transformations. The resulting adaptive metastructures will significantly enhance the field of self-actuating metamaterials with distributed intelligent capabilities. The results of this research will be a leap forward in the design of self-reconfigurable cardiovascular implants, swimming meta-robots, and passive flow-rate control systems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.