Triply Periodic Co-continuous piezocomposites, which consist of a ferroelectric-ceramic phase and an elastic-polymer phase continuously interconnected in three dimensions (3D), are emerging flexible piezoelectric materials with high efficiency in absorbing and converting multi-directional mechanical stimuli into electrical signals. Current co-continuous piezocomposites cannot be achieved with controlled piezoelectric properties due to the limited capability of traditional fabrication methods in carefully controlling the morphology of each phase, additive manufacturing such as Suspension-Enclosing Projection-Stereolithography process thus was selected. Porous ceramic skeleton with randomly distributed grain size is commonly observed in sintered ceramic skeleton fabricated by additive manufacturing. The effective piezoelectric properties of the piezocomposites were thus studied utilizing a two-scale method. Through analyzing the simulated results of different process parameters, optimal parameters of 3D printing processes including post-processes was subsequently suggested.

Composite materials have increasingly been used as an alternative to metals and other isotropic materials for primary structural components in aerospace industries. Unlike traditional isotropic materials, composite materials are known to have complex internal microstructures. Therefore, it is essential to develop methods for the inspection, evaluation, and monitoring of composite materials. Ultrasonic-guided waves and, more precisely, Lamb waves have proven to be an efficient and accurate technique for the non-destructive testing. Since guided waves are dispersive and multimodal, it is important to develop a practical method to manipulate Lamb waves to achieve better structural health monitoring and non-destructive inspection results. There are minimal studies involving manipulating guided waves for the inspection of composite materials. Moreover, the currently proposed methods to manipulate Lamb waves are complex and costly. The objective of this dissertation research is to offer practical and straightforward methods with a simple design to control Lamb waves using additively manufactured lenses used as superstrates on composite plates. This dissertation is organized in three major parts. Part I focuses on the Lamb wave propagation in composite plates with different lay-up and plate orientations. Finite element simulations were performed to investigate the behavior of Lamb wave propagation in different plates. A semi-finite element approach was used to derive the dispersive curves in each plate. In Part II, a lap-joint study was conducted to investigate the interaction of Lamb waves in the lap joint regions. Two different lap joints were considered, composite-aluminum and composite-plastic. In each lap joint the thickness of the top surface (aluminum or plastic) is continuously increased. In Part III, additively manufactured lenses are designed to modulate the wavefront of Lamb waves in thick composite plates. The first design is a prism-shaped lens proposed to steer Lamb waves to a targeted direction. Multiple prism designs are considered to offer a flexible steering direction by either changing the prism thickness or the wedge angle. The second design is a plano-concave shaped lens designed to focus the Lamb wave at a targeted focal point. This dissertation research will provide a clear understanding of Lamb wave propagation in anisotropic material, anisotropic-isotropic lap joints, and wavefront modulation on anisotropic material using additively manufactured lenses. This approach contributes to the development of better quality SHM for online monitoring systems.

A two-scale model consisting of ceramic grain scale and composite scale are developed to systematically evaluate the effects of microstructures (e.g., residual pores, grain size, texture) and geometry on the piezoelectric responses of the polarized triply periodic bi-continuous (TPC) piezocomposites. These TPC piezocomposites were fabricated by a recently developed additive manufacturing (AM) process named suspension-enclosing projection-stereolithography (SEPS) under different process conditions. In the model, the Fourier spectral iterative perturbation method (FSIPM) and the finite element method will be adopted for the calculation at the grain and composite scale, respectively. On the grain scale, a DL approach based on stacked generative adversarial network (StackGAN-v2) is proposed to reconstruct microstructures. The presented modeling approach can reconstruct high-fidelity microstructures of additively manufactured piezoceramics with different resolutions, which are statistically equivalent to original microstructures either experimentally observed or numerically predicted. Design maps for hydrostatic piezoelectric charging coefficients dh show they can achieve optimal performance at wide ranges of micro-porosity and geometry parameter u for the proposed TPC piezocomposites. In addition, geometry parameter u plays a dominant role in determining the intensity of hydrostatic voltage coefficient gh and hydrostatic figure of merit (HFOM) of all the presented TPC piezocomposites in the vicinity of the starting point of three-dimension (3D) interconnectivity. Within this range, these properties would increase first with the increasing of micro-porosity volume fraction (VF) and start to decrease once they reach peak values. The presented TPC piezocomposites exhibit a superb hydrostatic properties, with the same 20% VF of ceramics and 2% VF of micro-porosity with respect to composites and ceramics, respectively, TPC of face center cubic (FCC) demonstrates 327-fold enhancement of HFOM than that of the piezocomposite with three intersecting ceramic cuboids. The piezoelectric properties of FCC are superior to those of body center cubic (BCC) and simple cubic (SC). The calculated piezoelectric charging constants d33 and relative permittivity κ33 were then compared with the data measured from the products fabricated by the SEPS under different process conditions. The calculation results at both grain scale and composite scale were found to agree well with experimental results.

<p>Thesis Abstract: Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), a specialization within additive manufacturing, is a high precision metal powder processing technique that has gained immense attentions in the past decade. The layer-by-layer densification technique provides a unique set of abilities that permits the large-scale production of geometrically complicated structures with highly tunable microstructures. Alloy 718 (718) is one of the most studied materials within the LPBF field due to its extraordinary printability. Although it has a significant industrial and academic focus, there are consequential questions that still need to be addressed because of the immense LPBF design space.</p><p>Our works demonstrate the multiple pathways that an alloy system like 718 can be optimized for specific applications by altering the processing parameters or by the addition of oxide particles to create a fine dispersion for high temperature capabilities. Room temperature tensile testing revealed that the processing parameters directly controlled the mechanical properties, allowing tailoring of the tensile strength and elongation to the needs of specific applications. Similar experiments were conducted to exhibit the flexibility of LPBF by incorporating a wider, economic, bimodal powder size distribution that maintained similar mechanical properties. Additions of oxide particles enabled the findings of the reactive nature within this welding process, which ultimately led to a refined oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) 718 matrix with superior mechanical properties up to 900$^\circ$C. This novel metal matrix ceramic was lastly showcased by producing a complex microlattice structure. Detailed in-situ tensile tests in combination with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and finite element modeling revealed that crystallographic reorientation around bending nodes enhanced the global ductility of the material.</p>

<p>Fabricating complex submicron 3D structures can be achieved by multi-photon lithography, especially two-photon lithography is commonly used to obtain precision and flexibility in printing sophisticated sub-micron 3D structures. Several disadvantages stemmed from a two-photon lithography experiment setup, including cost, the necessity of a large laboratory space to use a femtosecond laser and a high-order process. A two-step absorption is chosen instead of two-photon lithography as a primary excitation process achieving the same degree of quadratic optical non- linearity as two-photon lithography at a lower cost with a relatively compact laboratory size. The working mechanism of Two-step absorption is the following. Quadratic nonlinearity comes from radicals from excited triplet states photoinitiators. Ground states of photoinitiators get excited by the incident laser. Those excited singlet photoinitiators go through the intersystem crossing, becoming the ground triplet state of photoinitiators. There are two branches after the ground triplet states, especially for photoinitiator benzil molecules with the incident laser on. Either it becomes a radical without photons received from the incident laser or gets excited again to an excited triplet state by the incident laser. Those excited triplet-state photoinitiator molecules become radicals that occur in polymerization. However, those from the ground triplet states add linearity to polymerization. When it comes to multiple exposures, the linearity becomes problematic, especially outside the region and tails of the voxel. For example, suppose the intensity at two tails of the voxel is 1% relative to the maximum intensity at the focal point. In that case, the absorbed dose will be added up to the maximum intensity at the focal point when it comes to 100 exposures. Quadratic nonlinearity and linearity are jumbled together in the current two-step absorption process. In this work, optimization of photoinitiator concentration was conducted to reduce the linearity. Confined and high throughput 3D structure fabrications are achieved by controlling initiator depletion. Simulations are also developed with multi-physics models to compare with the empirical results.</p>

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Additively manufactured parts produced using selective laser melting (SLM) are prone to defects created during the build process due to part shrinkage while cooling. Currently defects are found only after the part is removed from the printer. To determine whether cracks can be detected before a print is completed, this project developed print parameters to print a test coupon with inherent defects – warpage and cracking. Data recorded during the build was then characterized to determine when the defects occurred. The test coupon was printed using two sets of print parameters developed to control the severity of warpage and cracking. The builds were monitored using an accelerometer recording at 12500 samples per second, an iphone recording audio at 48000 samples a second, and a camera taking a photo every build layer. Data was analyzed using image comparison, signal amplitude, Fourier Transform, and Wavelet Decomposition. The developed print parameters reduced warpage in the part by better distributing heat throughout the build envelope. Reducing warpage enabled the lower portion of the part to be printed intact, preserving it to experience cracking later in the build. From physical evidence on the part as well as time stamps from the machine script, several high energy impulse events in the accelerometer data were determined to be when cracking occurred in the build. This project’s preliminary investigation of accelerometers to detect defects in selective laser melting will be used in future work to create machine learning algorithms that would control the machine in real time and address defects as they arise.

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Projektet syftar till att föreslå en rimlig riktning för hur additiva produktionsmetoder, alltså tillverkningsmetoder som använder lager-på-lager-teknik, kan tänkas påverka arkitekturen, att försöka sätta sig in i teknikerna och komma fram till vilken riktning som upplevs mest givande eller gångbar. Hur ska man nyttja potentialen med den nya tekniken på ett bra sätt? Jag har försökt ta fram en produkt som nyttjar potentialen hos de additiva produktionsmetoderna och som upplevs tänkbar för fullskalig realisering i byggsektorn i en närliggande framtid. Produkten består av en metod för framställning av en sandwichkonstruktion med hög trähalt och troligen lång livslängd. Metoden minskar byggsektorns klimatbelastning och kan ge stora rumsliga kvaliteter och formgivningsmöjligheter. Jag har genom fysiska experiment och utforskande av olika digitala fabrikationsmetoder försökt att visualisera och identifiera möjligheter med dessa nya tekniska hjälpmedel. Genom praktiska tester har jag prövat mina föreställningar av hur dessa metoder kan användas på effektiva sätt. Projektet vidga-des från att initialt omfatta additiva produktionsmetoder till att senare under tillämpningsfasen även omfatta digitala hjälpmedel såsom fotogrammetri och verktyg för parametrisk design. Projektet har resulterat i ett tillvägagångsätt för printning av cellulosabaserade sandwichkonstruktioner i printade formverk av återvinningsbar biokomposit. / The project aims to propose a direction for how additive manufacturing methods can influence architecture, to study the techniques and find out which direction could be perceived as most rewarding or viable. How to use the potential of the new technology in a good way? I have tried to develop a product that utilizes the potential of the additive manufacturing methods and which is conceivable for full-scale realization in the construction sector in the near future. The product consists of a method for producing long lasting sandwich constructions with high wood content. The method reduces the building industry's climate impact and can provide great spatial qualities and design possibilities. Through physical experiments and exploration of various digital fabrication methods, I have tried to visualize and identify possibilities with these new technological aids. Through practical tests, I have tested my ideas of how these methods can be used effectively. The project was expanded from initially studying additive production methods to, later during the application phase, also include digital aids such as photogrammetry and tools for parametric design. The project has resulted in a strategy for printing cellulose-based sandwich constructions in printed molds of recyclable biocomposite.

The growing popularity of additive manufacturing in commercial applications has al- lowed for new ideas and new ways of thinking when designing components. Further optimization at the component level is possible, though powder metallurgy is in its infancy. This study explores the possibility of using additive manufacturing to develop better labyrinth seals in turbomachinery. Labyrinth seals have a torturous fluid path with high losses, thus limiting the amount of fluid leakage. These types of seals can be non-rotating, allowing them to better take advantage of the additive manufacturing process due to the absence of rotating stresses. Labyrinth seal performance is defined by its ability to limit leakage through a seal. Investigations on the ability to reduce this leakage using the inherent roughness from the additive manufacturing process and the addition of complex geometry only capable of being produced by additive manufacturing are explored. Incompressible and compressible fluid models are utilized in the study. Perfectly smooth seals with tooth counts of four, six, and eight are first simulated using ANSYS FLUENT and compared to theoretical models to determine accuracy. Roughness is then applied to the seals and leakage decreases of 0.5% to 1.5% are experienced for the incompressible model. Decreases of 1.0% to 3.5% are experienced for the compressible model. Flow visualization and line analysis are conducted for all seals tested to understand how fluid flow is behaving within the clearance region of the seal and seal chambers. Several additive manufacturing geometries are simulated against a control seal to determine geometries with the largest effect on leakage rates. These geometries are then adapted to a six tooth seal and simulated with roughness. This additively manufactured seal is then compared to the smooth and rough six tooth seal for both incompressible and compressible fluids. Leakage was decreased by 5% to 8% for the incompressible model and 5% to 7% reductions for the compressible model when compared to the smooth seal. Flow visualization and line analysis were also conducted for the additively manufactured six tooth seal. A basic outline for an experiment and test stand were developed for future work.