Research Assistantship position open to PhD students in Mechanical Engineering: Metamaterial Design and Topology Optimization

A Research Assistantship position is open in the field of optimization applied to metamaterial (electromagnetic) design.  The successful applicant must have a MS degree in engineering or physics, a strong background in mechanics,  and a strong interest and demonstrable experience in  optimization methods (particularly, topology optimization) and in computational methods in mechanics (particularly, finite element methods).  Research requires that student be able to write his/her own simulation codes, thus strong computational skills are essential.  Special consideration will be given to students with a background in electromagnetics. Interested students must apply to the PhD program in the Mechanical Engineering Department

  If you are interested, PLEASE CONTACT ME at  diaz@egr.msu.edu   with your CV

PROJECT OUTLINE: Metamaterial Design and Topology Optimization

We are working to develop a methodology for design of and with metamaterials  based on topology optimization. The proposed methodology is intended to explore novel, complex metamaterial designs, integrate results in design of RF (radiofrequency) systems, and validate them using experimental information.

Metamaterials are a new class of engineered materials that exhibit exceptional properties not observed in naturally occurring substances. These properties arise from qualitatively new response functions that: (1) are not observed in the constituent materials and (2) result from the inclusion of artificially fabricated, extrinsic, low dimensional inhomogeneities    Metamaterials are not “materials” in the usual sense of the word. They must be designed. They achieve their “exceptional” properties by arranging materials in a special pattern, such as the design shown .  Many metamaterials are realized in this way, as engineered media, typically formed by small structures of dielectric or metallic inclusions in a host substrate, repeated periodically in space-filling arrays of identical unit cells. The geometry of the array also affects performance. Their design must be carefully crafted to achieve the material’s “exceptional” properties.   This is where the topology optimization approach will be applied.

Topology optimization refers to a set of concepts, methods and technologies used in design of engineering systems, based on the representation of shape as a material property and on the optimization of shape and layout for a specific purpose. In the topology optimization approach to material design, a material with desirable effective properties is synthesized by carefully designing the micro-geometry of inclusions in a host medium. The synthesis of the unknown micro-geometry is achieved through the formal solution of optimization problems where the unknown variables represent the spatial distribution of one or more constituent materials in a representative cell. This approach has been used very successfully, e.g., in elasticity problems, to synthesize the micro-geometry that results in a material with a (prescribed) target elastic tensor and in photonics/phononics  to synthesize the layout of a material with tailor-designed band-gap. Despite significant successes in these and other engineering fields, presently no topology optimization framework exists for metamaterial design in electromagnetics. This research explores formulations of the topology optimization problem that result in new metamaterial concepts, and seeks to uncover new designs, beyond the classical split-ring inspired layouts.