A recent award from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) brings together researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Lehigh University (Lehigh) under the umbrella Multi-Objective Engineering and Testing of Alloy Structures (METALS) Program.. The team will explore novel design tools for the simultaneous optimization of shape and composition gradients in multi-material structures that complement recent high-throughput materials testing techniques, with particular attention to bladed disk (blisk) geometry commonly present in turbomachinery (including jet engines) and rocket engines ) for example challenge problem.
“This project could have necessary impacts on a big selection of aerospace technologies. Insights from this work could enable more reliable, reusable rocket engines that can power the following generation of heavy-lift launch vehicles,” says Zachary Cordero, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor within the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro). ) and the lead principal investigator of the project. “This project combines classical mechanical evaluation with cutting-edge generative AI design technologies to unlock the plastic reserves of graded composition alloys and enable protected operation in previously inaccessible conditions.”
Different locations in blisks require different thermomechanical properties and performance, corresponding to: B. Creep resistance, short-term fatigue, high strength, etc. When producing on a big scale, the design also must keep in mind cost and sustainability metrics corresponding to alloy sourcing and recycling.
“Currently, standard manufacturing and design processes require you to provide you with a single magic material, composition and processing parameters to fulfill the one-part-one-material specifications,” Cordero says. “Desired characteristics are also often mutually exclusive, resulting in inefficient design compromises and compromises.”
Although a single-material approach could also be optimal for a single location in a component, it could lead to other locations being subject to failure or in requiring a critical material to be transported throughout a complete part when it is simply needed in a particular location becomes. With the rapid advancement of additive manufacturing processes that enable voxel-based composition and property control, the team now sees unique opportunities for leaps in performance in structural components.
Cordero's collaborators include Zoltan Spakovszky, T. Wilson (1953), professor of aeronautics at AeroAstro; A. John Hart, Class of 1922 Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Faez Ahmed, ABS Career Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT; S. Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at CMU; and Natasha Vermaak, associate professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics at Lehigh.
The team's expertise includes hybrid integrated computational materials engineering and machine learning-based materials and process design, precision instrumentation, metrology, topology optimization, deep generative modeling, additive manufacturing, materials characterization, thermostructural evaluation and turbomachinery.
“It is especially rewarding to work with the graduate students and postdoctoral researchers working on the METALS project, from developing recent computational approaches to constructing test rigs that operate in extreme conditions,” says Hart. “It is a really unique opportunity to develop breakthrough capabilities that might underlie the propulsion systems of the longer term by leveraging digital design and manufacturing technologies.”
