Computational design of 3D-printed active lattice structures for reversible shape morphing

Abstract

Abstract Active structures can adapt to varying environmental conditions and functional requirements by changing their shapes and properties, which makes them suitable for applications in changing environments as found in aerospace and automotive. Of special interest are light and stiff structures with shape morphing capabilities, which is naturally contradictory. Existing concepts in literature can be limited to a single, non-reversible actuation and are difficult to design due to the inherent complexity of large-scale lattices with many elements and complex target deformations. Here, we show how 3D-printed active materials can be combined with an efficient computational framework to design large-scale lattice structures that can change their shape between an initial state and a target state. The reversible deformation is controlled by a single actuation input and heating of the structure. Numerical and experimental results show the generality of the proposed method and the applicability to different problems such as morphing airfoils. Graphic Abstract