The prestigious current award granted by the United States. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has brought together researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and Lehigh University under its auspices. The staff will analyze novel design instruments for simultaneous optimization of form and compositional gradients in multi-material constructions, complementing high-throughput supply testing strategies. Specifically, they will focus on the bladed disk geometry common in turbomachinery, including jet and rocket engines, serving as a representative case study.
This innovative endeavor holds profound implications across a broad spectrum of aerospace disciplines. “This research has the potential to develop more reliable and sustainable rocket engines, paving the way for the next generation of heavy-lift launch vehicles,” declares Zachary Cordero, Esther and Harold E. As Edgerton Affiliate Professor in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he serves as the lead principal investigator for the venture. This innovative venture seamlessly integrates classic mechanical analyses with the latest advancements in generative AI, enabling the unlocking of previously inaccessible territories for compositionally graded alloys, thereby ensuring safe and reliable operation in challenging environments.
Diverse sectors of blisk fabrication necessitate the adaptation of distinct thermal-mechanical characteristics and performance indices, encompassing resistance to creep, low-cycle fatigue, elevated energy dissipation, and numerous other parameters. To achieve massive scale manufacturing, it’s crucial to consider value and sustainability metrics, such as alloy sourcing and recycling strategies, within the product design process.
“With today’s conventional manufacturing and design practices, it would be challenging to develop a single material that meets ‘one part-one material’ specifications without compromising on performance or efficiency,” Cordero notes. “Duplicative requirements often lead to inescapable design conflicts, necessitating suboptimal compromises.”
Although a one-material approach may be optimal for a single location within an element, it may leave other areas vulnerable to failure or necessitate the transportation of a crucial material throughout an entire section when it is only needed in a specific location? As additive manufacturing technologies accelerate, offering voxel-based control over material properties, the team recognizes unprecedented opportunities to revolutionize structural component performance through tailored compositions and optimized designs.
Collaborators of Cordero enthusiastically welcome Dr. Zoltán J. Pósa, a renowned expert in the field of T. Wilson (1953), a distinguished Professor of Aeronautics in the Department of Aero and Astronautical Engineering at [insert name of institution]. Here is the rewritten text:
John Hart, Class of 1922 Professor and Head of the Division of Mechanical Engineering, alongside Faez Ahmed, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and S. Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi, an assistant professor of supplies science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, alongside Natasha Vermaak, an affiliate professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics at Lehigh University.
Their expertise encompasses the convergence of built-in computational materials engineering and machine learning-driven materials design, complemented by proficiency in precision instrumentation, metrological analysis, topology optimisation, deep generative modelling, additive manufacturing, material characterisation, thermal-structural evaluation, and turbomachinery applications.
“Leading the METALS initiative, Hart finds fulfillment in mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral researchers as they coalesce to develop innovative computational methods and design complex study rigs capable of functioning under extreme conditions.” “Developing pioneering innovations in propulsion systems requires novel approaches, harnessing the power of digital design and manufacturing advancements to pioneer future mobility solutions.”
