An official website of the United States government
Abstract Cloaks are devices designed to conceal objects from detection. With the advancement of metamaterials, there is an increasing interest in developing multifunctional cloaks to cater to various application scenarios. This article proposes a level-set-based shape and topology optimization scheme to design simultaneous thermal and electrical cloaking devices. Unlike classical methods such as coordinate transformation and scattering cancelation, which are vulnerable to high material anisotropy, the proposed method employs only naturally occurring bulk materials, greatly facilitating physical realization. The bifunctional cloak is achieved by reproducing the reference temperature and electrical potential fields within the evaluation domain through the optimal layout of two thermally and electrically conductive materials. Using a similar formulation, we extend the proposed method to design a thermal–electrical camouflage device that can conceal a sensor while allowing it to remain functional. This study presents a method to simultaneously achieve sensing and camouflaging in multiphysical fields using topology optimization. Previous research has generally addressed these functionalities separately; in contrast, we integrate them into a unified framework. To demonstrate the method’s potential, we provide examples of bifunctional cloaks and camouflage devices. The dependency of the optimization results on the initial designs is also briefly investigated. Despite exhibiting a notable reliance on the initial guesses, as with any gradient-based method, the objective functions based on the least-square error are sufficiently small, demonstrating the effectiveness of the cloak. This study holds promise for inspiring further exploration of metadevices with multiple functionalities.
more »
« less
Level-Set-Based Shape & Topology Optimization of Thermal Cloaks
Thermal metamaterials are gaining increasing popularity, especially for heat flux manipulation purposes. However, due to the high anisotropy of the structures resulting from the transformation thermotics or scattering cancellation methods, researchers are resorting to topology optimization as an alternative to find the optimal distribution of constituent bulk materials to realize a specific thermal function. This paper proposes to design a thermal cloak using the level-set-based shape and topology optimization. The thermal cloak design is considered in the context of pure heat conduction. The cloaking effect is achieved by reproducing the reference temperature field through the optimal distribution of two thermally conductive materials. The structural boundary is evolved by solving the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The feasibility and validity of the proposed method to design thermal meta-devices with cloaking functionality are demonstrated through two numerical examples. The optimized structures have clear boundaries between constituent materials and do not exhibit thermal anisotropy, making it easier for physical realization. The first example deals with a circular cloaking region as a benchmark design. The robustness of the proposed method against various cloaking regions is illustrated by the second example concerning a human-shaped cloaking area. This work can inspire a broader exploration of the thermal meta-device in the heat flux manipulation regime.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1762287
- PAR ID:
- 10351917
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences
- ISSN:
- 1523-6501
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The distinction between “reinforcement” and “cloaking” has been overlooked in optimization-based design of devices intended to conceal a defect in an elastic medium. In the former, a so-called “cloak” is severely biased toward one or a few specific elastic disturbances, whereas in the latter, an “unbiased cloak” is effective under any elastic disturbance. We propose a two-stage approach for optimization-based design of elastostatic cloaks that targets true, unbiased cloaks. First, we perform load-case optimization to find a finite set of worst-case design loads. Then we perform topology optimization of the cloak microstructure under these worst-case loads using a judicious choice of the objective function, formulated in terms of energy mismatch. Although a small subset of the infinite load cases that the cloak must handle, these highly nonintuitive, worst-case loads lead to designs that approach perfect and unbiased elastostatic cloaking. In demonstration, we consider elastic media composed of spinodal architected materials, which provides an ideal testbed for exploring elastostatic cloaks in media with varying anisotropy and porosity, without sacrificing manufacturability. To numerically verify the universal nature of our cloaks, we compare the elastic response of the medium containing the cloaked defect to that of the undisturbed medium under many random load cases not considered during design. By using digital light processing additive manufacturing to realize the elastic media containing cloaked defects and analyzing their response experimentally using compression testing with digital image correlation, this study provides a physical demonstration of elastostatic cloaking of a three-dimensional defect in a three-dimensional medium.more » « less
-
Mechanical cloaks are materials engineered to manipulate the elastic response around objects to make them indistinguishable from their homogeneous surroundings. Typically, methods based on material-parameter transformations are used to design optical, thermal, and electric cloaks. However, they are not applicable in designing mechanical cloaks, since continuum-mechanics equations are not form invariant under general coordinate transformations. As a result, existing design methods for mechanical cloaks have so far been limited to a narrow selection of voids with simple shapes. To address this challenge, we present a systematic, data-driven design approach to create mechanical cloaks composed of aperiodic metamaterials using a large precomputed unit cell database. Our method is flexible to allow the design of cloaks with various boundary conditions, multiple loadings, different shapes and numbers of voids, and different homogeneous surroundings. It enables a concurrent optimization of both topology and properties distribution of the cloak. Compared to conventional fixed-shape solutions, this results in an overall better cloaking performance and offers unparalleled versatility. Experimental measurements on additively manufactured structures further confirm the validity of the proposed approach. Our research illustrates the benefits of data-driven approaches in quickly responding to new design scenarios and resolving the computational challenge associated with multiscale designs of functional structures. It could be generalized to accommodate other applications that require heterogeneous property distribution, such as soft robots and implants design.more » « less
-
Abstract Heterogeneous and complex electronic packages may require unique thermomechanical structures to provide optimal heat guiding. In particular, when a heat source and a heat sink are not aligned and do not allow a direct path, conventional thermal management methods providing uniform heat dissipation may not be appropriate. Here we present a topology optimization method to find thermally conductive and mechanically stable structures for optimal heat guiding under various heat source-sink arrangements. To exploit the capabilities, we consider complex heat guiding scenarios and three-dimensional (3D) serpentine structures to carry the heat with corner angles ranging from 30 deg to 90 deg. While the thermal objective function is defined to minimize the temperature gradient, the mechanical objective function is defined to maximize the stiffness with a volume constraint. Our simulations show that the optimized structures can have a thermal resistance of less than 32% and stiffness greater than 43% compared to reference structures with no topology optimization at an identical volume fraction. The significant difference in thermal resistance is attributed to a thermally dead volume near the sharp corners. As a proof-of-concept experiment, we have created 3D heat guiding structures using a selective laser melting technique and characterized their thermal properties using an infrared thermography technique. The experiment shows the thermal resistance of the thermally optimized structure is 29% less than that of the reference structure. These results present the unique capabilities of topology optimization and 3D manufacturing in enabling optimal heat guiding for heterogeneous systems and advancing the state-of-the-art in electronics packaging.more » « less
-
Abstract Fourier’s law dictates that heat flows from warm to cold. Nevertheless, devices can be tailored to cloak obstacles or even reverse the heat flow. Mathematical transformation yields closed-form equations for graded, highly anisotropic thermal metamaterial distributions needed for obtaining such functionalities. For simple geometries, devices can be realized by regular conductor distributions; however, for complex geometries, physical realizations have so far been challenging, and sub-optimal solutions have been obtained by expensive numerical approaches. Here we suggest a straightforward and highly efficient analytical de-homogenization approach that uses optimal multi-rank laminates to provide closed-form solutions for any imaginable thermal manipulation device. We create thermal cloaks, rotators, and concentrators in complex domains with close-to-optimal performance and esthetic elegance. The devices are fabricated using metal 3D printing, and their omnidirectional thermal functionalities are investigated numerically and validated experimentally. The analytical approach enables next-generation free-form thermal meta-devices with efficient synthesis, near-optimal performance, and concise patterns.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
