The research objective of this EArly Concepts Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award is to develop methods for modeling and design of lamina emergent mechanisms (LEMs). These special types of compliant mechanisms are fabricated from planar materials (lamina) but are able to produce motion that emerges out of the fabrication plane. The research will result in methods which are general enough to apply across multiple size regimes and that can be exploited in diverse applications. The research approach progresses from the development of simple components and basic mechanisms, to the creation of devices capable of complex motions and sophisticated tasks. LEM components and basic mechanisms will be designed, fabricated, and tested to validate the models, identify weaknesses, and demonstrate results. Deliverables include a catalog of fundamental components and basic mechanisms, modeling and analysis tools, demonstration and validation via hardware, documentation of research results, engineering student education, and engineering research experiences for pre-service teachers.
If successful, the results of this research will provide an opportunity to create compact, cost-effective devices that are capable of accomplishing sophisticated mechanical tasks. Example applications include orthopedic implants that have specified motion characteristics but are small during insertion, and microelectromechanical systems with precise out-of-plane motion. Devices made possible by the research will offer the advantages of planar fabrication, a flat initial state, and monolithic composition. The results will be disseminated to allow the creation of commercial devices that have increased precision, reduced cost, reduced weight, and improved recyclability. Graduate and undergraduate engineering students and pre-service teachers will benefit through classroom instruction and involvement in the research. Students studying to be 6-12 technology and pre-engineering teachers will be engaged to provide them firsthand research experience that they can draw on throughout their teaching careers.
Although there has always been a focus on the development of innovative products, in general there has been less of a focus on the rational design of methods and procedures which can be used to produce these products. The development of methods necessitate including constraints on resources - time and money - while fierce competition requires that product functionality stay the same or improves. The work developed with the funding provided by this proposal offers a designer the ability to develop simplified simulations of product behavior which can be used in the early stages of design rather than the more complex, expensive to compute simulations. These simplified simulations are to be used in the early stages of design when a designer is exploring possible product configurations to identify a result which is to be further refined. Thus a paradigm shift away from either eliminating uncertainty or modeling it precisely is proposed. Instead uncertainty is managed rather than eliminated. Further, with the work developed with this funding, in the early stages of product development a designer is able to prioritize the importance of meeting specified goals and later in the product development process, weigh and explore the consequences of the various design decisions which are made. Proof of concept for this method was demonstrated for an associated manufacturing process for steel making, the process of forging, which produces steel with specific microstructure and performance characteristics. This is part of a larger effort, in which a computational platform is being developed for integrating the chain of steel manufacturing processes with the design of automotive components. This work has been developed with colleagues at Tata Consultancy Services, Pune, India and the expertise they have gained from working with Tata Steel and Tata Motors. The anticipated computational platform will substantially reduce scale-up costs and costs related to production changes when a new product is introduced. This platform is being designed for the use of three types of users: (1) The designer who just needs a specific part and knows the requirements that are needed (2) The engineer who wishes to slightly modify the existing possible parts, and (3) The researcher/scientist who wishes to further extend/develop the computational platform for additional uses. From a design perspective, we have successfully demonstrated managing uncertainty in the integration of a series of modular simulations of industrial processes in which uncertainty is inevitable. This award directly funded opportunities for one student to receive his MS degree, 3 undergraduate students to perform undergraduate research – for which they won the University of Oklahoma’s Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research poster for 2014 and also offered an opportunity for a man who has retired from the military to re-direct his career into academia. Some material has been developed for a graduate level class. Further, work from this grant has been presented at conferences and disseminated through journal publications. In addition to the opportunities for student learning that this award has provided, this work is part of a larger project to demonstrate the integrated design of material and product in an industrial setting. We believe that integrating materials and product designs offers the opportunity for substantial savings while improving the desired product performance.
