Using Simulations to Discover High-Performance Impact Absorbers
Physics: Nonlinear Continuum Mechanics
Software: Abaqus Explicit
Audience: Sandia National Laboratories, upcoming journal publication
In a year-long research effort funded by Sandia National Laboratories, I crated a pipeline for automatically simulating a family of energy-absorbing metamaterials. These emerging materials have applications in personal safety, transportation of hazardous materials, and more.
These simulations involved several challenges:
Rate-dependent constitutive response for elastomeric base materials
Geometric and material nonlinearity
Dense and intermittent contact interactions
I invested months of work in quasistatic and dynamic material characterization, leading to a brief transactions publication in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing. The simulation model was validated against empirical measurements gathered on a custom impact test fixture.
The model allowed me to conduct sweeping explorations of the design space, as well as simulate impacts that were beyond the capabilities of the physical apparatus. Results from this investigation will appear in a forthcoming journal publication.