<div>Roll-to-roll processes provide a low-cost and high-throughput scheme for scalable flexible devices manufacturing. Multiple processes are used in roll-to-roll manufacturing, such as functional printing, evaporation/drying, UV curing, hot embossing, laser/heat annealing, laser ablation, plasma/ chemical growth, and sputtering. These processes change the web temperature field and/ or local properties. In addition, residual stresses by the process and web tension can destabilize the process and lead to wrinkling or undesirable performance of the products.</div><div>This dissertation investigates three different multi-physics problems relevant to the roll-to-roll processes, which are web thermomechanics, air-coupled web vibrations, and the measuring of nonuniform web tension. First, a mathematical model for predicting the in-plane temperature and heat induced stress distributions in a flexible, axially moving web under arbitrary shape of heat flux is presented. The computational approach is validated on experiments performed on moving paper and PET webs with infrared laser heating source. Second, a closed-form, semi-analytical, universal hydrodynamic functions is developed to accurately predict the lowest symmetric and anti-symmetric transverse frequency responses for any uniaxially tensioned web of arbitrary material and aspect ratio used in roll-to-roll processes with the surrounding air acting as distributed added mass. Experimental validation is carried out by using pointwise laser measurements of acoustically excited webs with different pre-tensions, web materials, and aspect ratios. Finally, we develop and test a non-contact resonance method and a gentle contact stiffness mapping method based on the first principles mechanical models of a tensioned plate to accurately measure the average web tension and its linear variation for a wide range of web properties, web path, web tension, measurement configurations, and environmental conditions. The two methods are cross-validated on a stationary test stand and the non-contact resonance method is used to study the web tension distribution within a commercial roll-to-roll system.</div><div><br></div>

<p>Metamaterials are artificially structured materials which attain their unconventional macroscopic properties from their cellular configuration rather than their constituent chemical composition. The judicious design of this cellular structure opens the possibility to program and control the optical, mechanical, acoustic, or thermal responses of metamaterials. This Ph.D. dissertation focuses on scalable design and manufacturing strategies for optical and mechanical metamaterials.<br> <br> </p> <p>The fabrication of optical metamaterials still relies heavily on low-throughput process such as electron beam lithography, which is a serial technique. Thus, there is a growing need for the development of high-throughput, parallel processes to make the fabrication of optical metamaterials more accessible and cost-effective. The first part of this dissertation presents a scalable manufacturing method, termed “roll-to-roll laser induced superplasticity” (R2RLIS), for the production of flexible optical metamaterials, specifically metallic near-perfect absorbers. R2RLIS enables the rapid and inexpensive fabrication of ultra-smooth metallic nanostructures over large areas using conventional CO₂ engravers or inexpensive diode lasers. Using low-cost metal/epoxy nanomolds, the minimum feature size obtained by R2RLIS was <40 nm, facilitating the rapid fabrication of flexible near-perfect absorbers at visible frequencies with the capability to wrap around non-planar surfaces.</p> <p> </p> <p>The existing approaches for designing mechanical metamaterials are mostly <i>ad hoc</i>, and rely heavily on intuition and trial-and-error. A rational and systematic approach to create functional and programmable mechanical metamaterials is therefore desirable to unlock the vast design space of mechanical properties. The second part of this dissertation introduces a systematic, algorithmic design strategy based on Voronoi tessellation to create architected soft machines (ASMs) and twisting mechanical metamaterials (TMMs) with programmable motion and properties. ASMs are a new class of soft machines that benefit from their 3D-architected structure to expand the range of mechanical properties and behaviors achievable by 3D printed soft robots. On tendon-based actuation, ASMs deform according to the topologically encoded buckling of their structure to produce a wide range of motions such as contraction, twisting, bending, and cyclic motion. TMMs are a new class of chiral mechanical metamaterials which exhibit compression-twist coupling, a property absent in isotropic materials. This property manifests macroscopically and is independent of the flexible material chosen to fabricate the TMM. The nature of this compression-twist coupling can be programmed by simply tuning two design parameters, giving access to distinct twisting regimes and tunable onset of auxetic (negative Poisson’s ratio) behavior. Taking a metamaterial approach toward the design of soft machines substantially increases their number of degrees of freedom in deformation, thus blurring the boundary between materials and machines.</p>