Dr. Carlos Portela: : Towards 3D Architected Materials Beyond the Laboratory

Title: : Towards 3D Architected Materials Beyond the Laboratory

Bio:
Carlos Portela is the d’Arbeloff Career Development Professor in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Dr. Portela received his Ph.D. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. His research lies at the intersection of materials science, mechanics, and nano-to-macro fabrication with the objective of designing and testing novel materials—with features spanning from nanometers to centimeters—that yield unprecedented mechanical and acoustic properties. Present application areas in Dr. Portela’s group involve the creation of novel lightweight armor materials, ultrasonic devices for medical purposes, and new generations of highly resilient structural materials.

Abstract:
Architected materials have been ubiquitous in nature, enabling unique properties that are unachievable by monolithic, homogeneous materials. Inspired by natural processes, human-made three-dimensional (3D) architected materials have been reported to enable novel mechanical properties such as high stiffness-to-density ratios or extreme resilience, increasingly so when nanoscale size effects are present. However, most architected materials have relied on advanced additive manufacturing (AM) techniques that are not yet scalable and yield small sample sizes—particularly if micro- or nanoscale features are desired. In this talk, we will discuss a few ongoing challenges in the push to enable architected materials beyond laboratory settings, as well as recent developments that aim to address these challenges. In particular, we will discuss a fabrication method that could bypass advanced AM processes in the creation of nano-architected materials with nano-shell morphologies, along with novel material designs that could enable extreme extensibility and on-demand tunable mechanical response.