Low-order dynamic modeling for electroactive surfaces
Anahita Amiri defended her PhD thesis at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry on March 13th.
Smart surfaces are composed of smart materials that can change shape or properties when exposed to a stimulus such as electricity. This change can result in a specific function, such as a sensation on the user's fingertip, a dynamic change that can repel dust/dirt, or a change in optical properties such as transparency in the devices mentioned above. The integration of new smart materials into devices is missing criticial steps that would enable accurate control and application of these smart materials. For her PhD thesis, Anahita Amiri looked at ways to solve this control problem.
Smart dynamic surfaces form a large part of the advanced devices used in our daily lives, such as smartphone screens, self-cleaning coatings, and smart window privacy glasses that can change from a transparent to an opaque state. Such smart surfaces are made up of smart materials that can change shape of properties depending on a stimulus like electricity.
Dynamic deformation
Currently, several newly developed smart materials with interesting dynamic characteristics, i.e., dynamic deformation, have the potential to be integrated into advanced functional surfaces and displays.
These smart materials are mostly developed experimentally at the laboratory scale in the field of materials science. To enable the integration of these new materials into functional devices, essential steps required to ensure control over the deformation of such smart materials are missing.
These are simple compact models that describe the responsiveness of the material and highly reproducible prototype production. These missing steps toward the control of such smart coatings/surfaces represent a major gap toward their integration into advanced application devices.
Exploration
The main research objective of the PhD research of Anahita Amiri was to explore the possibility of solving this control challenge and to take the first steps toward bringing these novel smart materials closer to application.
For two popular categories of these smart materials, she investigated the development of simple models, the application of these models in controller design, and how to improve the reproducibility for prototyping.
Through this research, in addition to developing novel solutions, she highlights the challenges for the next steps in the application phase of these smart materials.
Title of PhD thesis: Low-order dynamic modeling for electroactive surfaces. Supervisors: Ines Lopez Arteaga, Nathan van de Wouw, and Dirk Broer.