Professor Valentine Presents to the Trinity College Dublin School of Physics

Professor Valentine presented at the Trinity College School of Physics Seminar, in Dublin Ireland, hosted by Prof. Stefan Hutzler. She presented on the group's work on development of high performance 3D printed foams, while developing new connections for collaborations and recruitment.

Abstract:  Micro-structured materials are ubiquitous in biological systems, where they impart superior mechanical properties including high toughness and strength, and many biomaterials are naturally stimuli responsive. Yet understanding how to controllably formulate and optimize such multiphase, hierarchical and adaptive materials remains challenging. Much of my group’s work focuses on developing new methods for the design, manufacture, and mechanical analysis of bioinspired material systems, ranging from the on-demand manufacture of lightweight composites to light-activated polymers to self-regulating actuators for use in soft robotics, in addition to studies of the biological organisms themselves.  In this talk, I will present our recent work in developing 3D printing methods to create energy-dispersive all-polymer foams with controlled porosity through the incorporation of thermally expandable microspheres. We investigate how foaming impacts the mechanics of the composite material, including modulus, Poisson’s ratio, and energy dissipation. We find that the 3D-printed foams are remarkably resilient under cyclic loading, with sustained values of both modulus and energy dissipation under repeated loading at large deformations.