4D-Printed PIEZOelectric FUnctional MetaMaterials for Enhanced Sensing, Energy Harvesting and Dissipation
The development of multi-functional piezoelectric materials and structures with inherent capabilities to sense and selfmonitor deformation and motion, harvest energy and control the storage and dissipation of strain or kinetic energy from vibrations and acoustic waves is an open scientific challenge. On the other hand, new disruptive developments in multimaterial additive manufacturing (AM) have motivated the development of microstructured dynamic metamaterials with rich dynamic responses. 4D-PIEZOUMME addresses the important challenge to develop of 4D printed piezoelectric metamaterials,
that will combine 3D printed microstructured polymers with printed piezoelectric microelements, electric circuitry providing the 4th dimension in the form of electromechanical coupling enabling new functions. It is the basic hypothesis of the project that the rich local dynamic response of piezoelectric metamaterials will yield increased electromechanical coupling, higher efficiency of electromechanical power conversion and enriched functionalities. Two Expert Research Teams join forces to tackle the main goal of the project: to enable the 4D printing of the envisioned piezoelectric metamaterials with a-priori specified microstructure and functionalities through the development of novel 4D printing processes and validated innovative computational modelling tools. Related to the main goal, 4 specific challenges and objectives are defined that are addressed in 4 research work-packages.
The scientific impact of 4D-PIEZOUMME will be strategic at the fundamental and applied research level. New knowledge and innovations will be generated which will enable breakthroughs in the fields of 4D printing, dynamic metamaterials and piezoelectric materials. It is also a vision of 4D-PIEZOUMME to overcome barriers hindering the exploitation of metamaterials and piezoelectrics resulting in high Societal Impact in aerospace, consumer products, digital transformation and biomedical applications
This Project is Collaboration between:
Department of Mechanical and Aeronautics Engineering of the University of Patras
Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki