DMS Lab. University of Washington.
Research
The DMS Lab lays the foundations for developing novel structural and metamaterial architectures with extreme and innovative properties. Modern manufacturing advances have created a rapidly growing design space for structures with complex geometry and material compositions. Our research connects fundamental mechanics and dynamics with optimization and design to push further into this space, uncovering new physical phenomena and engineering capabilities.
With an emphasis on metamaterials and origami-inspired structures, our group pursues structures engineered for functionalities such as isolating vibrations, steering waves, and changing shape. Our research aims to enable new applications across disciplines, from space structures to robotics to electronics and beyond.
Origami-inspired Structures
Morphing structures change their shape to unlock new functionality. Shape change is a powerful concept for creating multifunctional structures that can adapt to different operating conditions, optimizing their performance for applications in aerospace, robotics, electronics, and beyond.
Origami-inspired folding provides a platform for reconfigurable engineering structures. Our research explores the geometric forms and mechanical/dynamic behavior of folding structures, developing new modeling tools and design concepts to advance the frontiers of structural performance.
Metamaterial Dynamics
Metamaterials are engineered materials with small-scale architecture that is carefully designed to achieve remarkable effective properties that are out of reach of natural materials. Fascinating and useful dynamic properties emerge in metamaterial architectures, including the ability to guide and focus waves and isolate vibrations.
A key barrier to the advancement of metamaterials is the scalability of computational modeling and design tools. Metamaterial dynamics models must capture multiple length and time scales, presenting a computational bottleneck for realizing the potential of the rich metamaterial design space. Our research focuses on developing efficient modeling and design tools for expanding the design space beyond periodic architectures, including spatially graded, defective, and disordered metamaterials, which unlock new physical phenomena and functionalities not accessible in periodic designs.
