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Auxetic Structures are a class of Metamaterials uniquely characterised by their Negative Poissons Ratio, that is when a lateral force is applied they expand longitudinally, becoming thicker and stronger, perpendicular to the strain. This counterintuitive behaviour has many enhanced behavioural properties, our research has specifically focused on their response to impact forces for sports protection scenarios.

Additive Manufacturing using the Stratasys J750 multimaterial printer allows us to print reactive physical properties of Auxetic Structures, manipulated through generative programming. This parametric customisation of the internal topology, materiality and subsequent 4D printing has the potential for geometries to be uniquely designed for pre-determined impact scenarios.

In order to achieve contextualisation a critical translation process is required. Auxetic theory classifies and describes structural geometry, mechanics and topological restrictions. Digitally CAD modelled geometries for tangible materials testing looks to bridge the gap between computer simulated predictions and physical outcomes of structures adapted through design means for fabrication. Understanding how similar or dissimilar tangible geometry behaviour is to theoretical expectations will allow for new, informed investigations into realistic opportunities for application implementation.

The majority of our focus is spent working in this translation space, parametrically modelling the structures three dimensionally and manufacturing prototyped samples to iteratively test and evaluate for their capabilities of producing the Auxetic effect under strain. Come the end of our research we hope to have used this process to identify structures more likely to succeed in a given context, one step closer to widely deploying Auxetic Structures for enhanced safety protection.
Transcript
00:00Hello, I'm Brittany Mark. I'm a postgraduate industrial design student at Victoria University
00:16of Wellington in New Zealand. I'd like to start off by saying thank you to Victoria and also my
00:23supervisor Tim Miller and the maid stream at the university. So the research that I'm presenting
00:31is a part of my master's thesis which has been the last year and a half and it finishes in August so
00:38this is the majority of the research I've done. Primarily I'm speaking about the translation
00:45of auxilia structure theory into tangible outputs made possible through geometric CAD modelling
00:53and then multi-material manufacturing. So firstly there's the translation process which is the
01:00theory of auxilia structures into the realisation of the manufacturing. The main way we are
01:06multi-material printing is with the Strauss's J750 printer. The parametric design modelling is
01:14primarily through Rhino and Grasshopper and then we use the materials that have been fabricated
01:20through to perform a range of mechanical testing to implement kinetic auxetics which is the 4D
01:31structures. On the right you can see unit cells of a metachiral structure which have gone through the
01:38mechanical testing. And then finally once the materials are structurally sound they've been applied
01:47to specific geometries for customised scenarios. So the process that we go through is structure theory.
01:58The structures were chosen based on a range of criteria but primarily the ones that were chosen to be
02:04manufactured were biaxial and three-dimensional. Then the mechanical design principles are translated
02:12through computational Rhino and Grasshopper and then they are put through an optimisation software to
02:20enable additive manufacturing and then they are multi-material printed on the J750 and then mechanically
02:28tested and then applied. So you can see an example of the re-entrant double arrow which was the first
02:36testing that we went through the entire process. So there's the theory and then the grasshopper script,
02:42the Rhino model and then you can see an FDM print that was done with PLA and then the three structures on
02:49the right on the right with the hands they are done multi-material printing. So the hinge is made of an
02:57Agilis rubber-like material and then the struts are a rigid Vero Tango Plus which is a rigid plastic and then
03:08that's a render of what a structure looks like three by three. So in terms of the multi-material printing we
03:18develop the structures through CAD and then at the end they are put through the GrabCAD which is the software that the
03:25Stratus is used to print the structures and then you can see the J750 that's the main printer there.
03:36The structures come out with a huge amount of support material on them. We try to reduce this through
03:41material and design optimization but essentially the support material can come in two forms water
03:50removable or soluble through a chemical bath and so some of the structures are put through in a chemical
03:57bath but obviously that then interferes with some of the elasticity properties and so we're careful
04:04with what goes through the chemical bath and what is manually removed. All the structures on the right
04:10are manual removal and then they all are exhibiting the auxetic effect through the hinge design and the
04:18stripes design as well. So the key part of the research is taking the auxetic structure theory and
04:28making it tangible and many of the obstacles come through the design considerations. So the way that
04:37is printed as in is it relaxed or engaged in the way it is put on the print bed. So we've
04:45we've experimented with a range of relaxed to engaged states. The shortness so you can see on the
04:53left this image is the range of materials that we have on the printer and the material agilis so that's the
04:59rubber structure so it goes from 20 to 80 um and we can vary that in 10 by 10 degrees of increment and um
05:09that increases or decreases the rub rubber like of this um the rubber of the material and so that's the
05:17structure the re-entrant hexagonal structure um exhibiting auxetic through short hardness 20 40 60.
05:26Uh then there's the hinge radius which is how large the hinge is the scale of the hinge in regard to the
05:33scale of the structure and then the strut width and profile so some profiles have been printed circular
05:41and others have been printed square and then the thickness of the strut um up to a maximum where it's
05:47most structurally robust but it still is exhibiting an auxetic effect and then the structures are put
05:55through a range of mechanical testing so the three images at the start are the planar hinges for a range
06:02of trial uh re-entrant and rotating rigid units and then they are they are tested for their position their
06:13maximum height um the degrees of artic how far it articulates and then um after that the material
06:26damage is recognized so this is the metatrial compression twist um and you can see there's a
06:34varying range of damage uh the most damage we see is at the boundary of the agilis and the rigid tango
06:42material um but also there is a certain amount of damage seen at the vertex uh so we can design for
06:51that and increase the strut width and also the hinge radius to compensate for the weakness at the vertex
07:03but also ensuring that we haven't created an elasticity that is so high that the model is acting rather as a
07:12elastic lattice and not as an auxetic open cell foam um so this is the metatrial compression twist we chose this
07:23primarily because it is biaxel and it is three-dimensional uh so it can be
07:32multi-material printed and we can demonstrate a biaxel movement um with a single unit so a range of um
07:42design parameters uh have been experimented with and then selected so the square the profile the
07:50shore hardness and the scale etc and so you can see on the right the rhino and grasshopper cad development
07:56so primarily the structures are developed in rhino so that we can apply all of the mechanical restrictions
08:04to the unit cells and then we use the grasshopper to generate the lattices um so that they can increase
08:11the density and the scale of the um open cell foams and then once the structures are working we then have
08:21kinetic auxetics and so they are moving four dimensionally through the stimuli that we apply to it uh
08:29so to decide the application uh in new zealand we have acc which is a entire um database of all sports
08:39injuries that the country experiences and so we've compressed all of that data and um identified that knee
08:49injuries in football and netball are our biggest um areas for the biggest opportunity areas for um applying
08:59auxetic structures which can be um four-dimensional when they are impacted um in a sports scenario
09:09so the knee is um the scenario can actually be customized specifically to the anatomy of the
09:17individual so if we decide that it's a knee injury perhaps it's an acl injury we have the ability to
09:24scan a person's knee and then you can see on the um right the um render of the knee so that's someone's
09:33knee and then we can take that model into the design software um put the structure that is best suited for
09:41that scenario so for a knee injury acls are primarily as a result of rotational impact if we apply a metachiral
09:50twist um structure that absorbs the rotational impact and so it decreases the um risk of acl
09:59um so this the knee is in the design software we develop a range of curvature to fit the knee
10:09or whichever part in an anatomical part of the body um we are targeting and then the structure is then
10:17morphed to the surface through the grasshopper scripts and we can start to experiment with how
10:24dense the units are as well as how dispersed they are um whether they are on synclastic curvature which
10:32is obviously important for um the body we want the structure to be moving all three in all three
10:38directions um across the surface and then we can apply this script to a range of scenarios um once the
10:49structure is morphed so obviously this is a work in progress and with the uh covert it has been slowed
10:55down slightly um in our ability to be on campus doing the manufacturing and stuff but um in the next
11:01couple of months the structures will be finalized and morphed to the surface and obviously um
11:07parameters such as the um density and whatnot will be um potentially more controlled um but that's
11:15potentially that is how we implement um the multi-material prints into applications um so yeah
11:24that is pretty much as far as we've gotten so far um so thank you for listening and thank you again to
11:33victoria university and tim miller my supervisor as well
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