Title:

Additive Manufacturing of Soft, Stiff, and Tough Multifunctional Materials

Speaker:

Prof. William Boley

Affiliation:

Boston University

When:

Thursday, March 13, 2025 at 2:00:00 PM   Add to Calendar

Where:

MRDC Building, Room 4211

Host:

Jerry Qi
qih@me.gatech.edu

Abstract

Materials of the future require burgeoning combinations of outstanding properties (e.g.'s, mechanical, electrical, and stimuli-responsive), which can only be realized through the careful design of new precursors, digital designs, and additive manufacturing. My talk will cover two broad examples of current and ongoing work from our group towards this effort. The first example will cover our work on designing liquid metal emulsions for 3D printed soft conductors and electrochemically active materials. We integrate the conductive emulsions in a hybrid 3D printing process to rapidly prototype wireless wearable haptics devices. We employ the electrochemically active emulsions for stretchable batteries, and soft, self-powered keyboards. The second example highlights our work on developing new polymer composites for high stiffness, high toughness 4D printed electrically controllable multifunctional structures that detect and tolerate damage. The actuators formed by these materials generate stresses and specific forces that are larger than any other 3D printed actuators to date, with self-sensing and closed loop control capabilities.

Biography

J. William (Will) Boley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Materials Science at Boston University (BU). His research group focuses understanding and harnessing the relationships between materials synthesis, assembly process, and multiscale architecture in AM to create new functional materials and systems. He completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees at the University of Kentucky, and Ph.D. at Purdue University. He conducted two postdoctoral trainings prior to joining BU, first at Purdue University, and then at Harvard University. He is a recent recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator and NSF CAREER Awards.