Making compliant mechanisms smart: nonlinear modeling and design optimization

Dr. Mary Frecker

Distinguished Speaker

Professor of Mechanical & Biomedical Engineering

Penn State University

Abstract - Compliant mechanisms have been the subject of intense research in recent decades. Making compliant mechanisms "smart" to form flexible, adaptive structures is the focus of my research group, with applications ranging from medical devices to aerospace structures. This seminar will describe recent work on modeling approaches for compliant mechanisms with both superelastic material behavior and large deformations, which have not been considered previously in the literature. This approach allows for design of compliant mechanism-based metamaterials with highly nonlinear stiffness and enhanced energy absorption. Additionally, the presentation will cover our method for designing active compliant mechanisms that change shape on demand due to application of external stimulus such as magnetic field, electric field, or temperature. Methods to optimize origami-based designs with magneto active elastomer and dielectric elastomer materials will be described, along with an analytical modeling approach for soft magneto active elastomer devices produced via additive manufacturing.

Bio - Mary Frecker is the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, the Leighton Riess Chair in Engineering, and the founding director of the Center for Biodevices at Pennsylvania State University. She has served as Associate Department Head for Graduate Programs in Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering, as well as Director of the Bernard Gordon Learning Factory in the College of Engineering. Dr. Frecker has a B.S. from the University of Dayton, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Dr. Frecker has been awarded the Pearce Endowed Development Professorship in Mechanical Engineering at Penn State, the GM/Freudenstein Young Investigator Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Mechanisms Committee (2002), the Outstanding Advising Award by the Penn State Engineering Society (2002), the Outstanding Research Award by the Penn State Engineering Society (2005), three ASME Best Paper awards (2009 and 2015), and the ASME Adaptive Structures and Material Systems Award (2021). She served as an Executive Leadership in Academic Technology & Engineering (ELATE) Fellow in 2018-2019, and completed the Changing the Future for Senior Women Faculty in STEM leadership program in 2019. Dr. Frecker is a Fellow of the ASME, is currently an Executive Committee member of the ASME Design Engineering Division and past Chair of the ASME Mechanisms & Robotics Technical Committee, and has served as Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Chair of the ASME Adaptive Structures and Material Systems Technical Committee, and Executive Committee member of the ASME Aerospace Division.