Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng (Advisor)

This work pertains to the multi-objective inverse design of impact-resistant metamaterials under varying strain rates. Impact-resistant materials are desirable in a wide range of applications, such as sports, automobiles, military, and aircraft, to name a few. Existing literature deals with refining these structures by performing quasi-static finite element (FE) simulations and then verifying them experimentally, which is a time-consuming and expensive process. Moreover, beyond the low-velocity regime, quasi-static simulations are not representative of real-world dynamic...

Additive manufacturing has enabled the creation of new classes of architected meta-materials with exceptional structural and functional properties. Large-area projection micro-stereolithography (LAPµSL) has the potential for producing large volume metamaterials with millions of micro-scale unit cells and multiple orders of magnitude in length scales. Nevertheless, as part size grows with increasing number of unit cells, probability of finding embedded defects becomes significantly higher. Structural defects, such as internal cracks and non-uniformity embedded within networks of micro-scale...