Structured Materials

Structured materials exhibit extraordinary mechanical properties, enabling applications in robotics, architecture, and many fields of engineering. Our research focuses on computational modeling, characterization, and inverse design of these materials to achieve tunable stiffness. By integrating physics-based simulation with machine learning and optimization, we develop predictive tools that reveal emergent behaviors and guide the creation of novel structures.

Scaled Sheet Materials

FlexScale: Modeling and Characterization of Flexible Scaled Sheets

Juan Montes Maestre, Yinwei Du, Ronan Hinchet, Stelian Coros, Bernhard Thomaszewski

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH 2024)

PDF Video Project

We present a computational approach for modeling the mechanical behavior of flexible scaled sheet materials — 3D-printed hard scales embedded in a soft substrate. Balancing strength and flexibility, these structured materials find applications in protective gear, soft robotics, and 3D-printed fashion. To unlock their full potential, however, we must unravel the complex relation between scale pattern and mechanical properties. To address this problem, we propose a contact-aware homogenization approach that distills native-level simulation data into a novel macromechanical model. This macro-model combines piecewise-quadratic uniaxial fits with polar interpolation using circular harmonics, allowing for efficient simulation of large-scale patterns. We apply our approach to explore the space of isohedral scale patterns, revealing a diverse range of anisotropic and nonlinear material behaviors. Through an extensive set of experiments, we show that our models reproduce various scale-level effects while offering good qualitative agreement with physical prototypes on the macro-level.