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Dissertation
3D Printing of Soft Composites with Tunable Visco-Hyperelastic Properties
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
07/2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000007857
Abstract
The ability to precisely control spatially varying visco-hyperelastic properties of soft materials is an emerging need towards the development of biomimetic compliant structures. Multi-material additive manufacturing has shown promise as an effective method in achieving this goal, however commonly used methods are expensive and limited in material capabilities. This work firstly presents novel soft composites, consisting of a silicone matrix and thermoplastic elastomer reinforcements, fabricated through low-cost extrusion-based additive manufacturing. A customized 3D printer with direct ink write (DIW) and fused filament fabrication (FFF) capabilities is used to print composites with a sinusoidal reinforcement pattern in which hyperelastic properties are tuned and spatially varied through the frequency and amplitude of the reinforcement. Information from these functionally graded composites is then used to develop a method of efficiently modeling the design-property relationships of these composites that is then used to realize composites with as-designed property variations. Secondly, composites are designed with tunable viscoelastic properties that vary based on the composite volume fraction and a design parameter referred to as the layer rotation angle. Two modeling strategies are presented in an effort to understand the fundamental interactions between design parameters and viscoelastic behavior towards a goal of predictive modeling strategies. The presented approaches open up possibilities to precisely manufacture soft structures with tunable, as-designed visco-hyperelastic properties, supporting advancements in materials used in various applications including soft wearables, flexible electronics and presurgical organ models.
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Details
- Title
- 3D Printing of Soft Composites with Tunable Visco-Hyperelastic Properties
- Creators
- Kimberlee Hughes
- Contributors
- B. Arda Gozen (Chair)Lloyd Smith (Committee Member)Kaiyan Qiu (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 184
- Identifiers
- 99901299294601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation