Design tools for architectured bio-mimetic actuators

Project description and requirements

The Center for Multifunctional Architectured Materials (CEMAM) at the Grenoble Institute of Technology in Grenoble, France invites applications for a postdoctoral position to work on design tools for architectured bio-mimetic actuators. Actuators, controllable work-producing devices, serve many natural and man-made or artificial engineering applications. These devices often exploit phase changes or differences in properties (thermal expansion, magnetostriction) in order to elicit forces and/or displacements. As demands for greater efficiency increase, larger scale and lower-cost artificial actuators are required. The simplest, low-cost, engineering actuators are typically bi-layer systems that are thermally activated and manufactured from a top-down approach rather than additive layer-by-layer approaches. Yet in order to provide the greatest efficiency, large material contrasts are needed, resulting in high stresses or strain gradients across the bi-layer interface that ultimately limit man-made actuator lifetimes. In contrast, biological actuators, especially numerous in the plant kingdom, can efficiently produce both large displacements and forces with long lifetimes. A defining characteristic of these successful systems is their application of graded or architectured interfaces. The objective of this project is a collaborative fundamental study of this conflict between man-made bi-layer actuator efficiency and lifetime in order to provide guidelines for improved actuators. As the use of simple bi-layer systems is restricted by accommodation of large stresses or strains at the bi-layer interface, it is at the interfacial level that the ideal candidate will use the tools of architectured materials, bio-mimetic research, shape/topology optimization, and mathematical modeling of shape instabilities to enhance actuator and bi-materials systems performance.

Desirable background for this position includes:

• PhD in Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or related fields.
• Strong background in FEA (Finite Element Analysis). Specific knowledge of coupling multiple numerical computation software applications would be beneficial.
• Experience in developing optimization protocols involving multiple objectives.
• Excellent programming skills.

Interested candidates may apply to Professor Guillaume Parry with a cover letter, detailed CV, a copy of a publication deemed best representative of the candidate's creative research, and names and email addresses of three references.