Digital Design and Manufacturing of Bio-inspired Architectured Ceramics
with Behnam Ashrafi, Ph. D., M. Eng, Aerospace Manufacturing Technology Center, National Research Council Canada, Montreal, QC
ASM Speaker Series In-person Event
Feb. 7th 2024 (6:30pm EST) – Holiday Inn 590 Argus Rd, Oakville, ON L6J 3J3 (near Oakville GO station)
Combining properties such as strength, toughness, impact resistance, and high-temperature resistance for ceramics remains a tremendous engineering challenge. These properties are required for many applications, including in the defense, ground transportation, aerospace, and energy sectors. Architectured materials and structures provide potentially robust design strategies to enhance the strength and toughness of brittle materials.
Bio-inspiration and architectured materials and interfaces can transform brittle ceramics into impact-resistant structures with tunable toughness, strength, and stiffness. Architectured ceramics fall within this category, in which the building blocks are individual layers of material bonded by weaker interfaces. Architectured ceramics allow a crack initiated by static or dynamic loads to deviate either by deflection or delamination to generate toughening mechanisms. Inspired by these architectured materials, a recent study at the National Research Council Canada showed that laser-engraved architectured ceramics outperform plain ceramics in quasi-static and low-speed impact conditions. Specifically, they showed 50 times more energy absorption in quasi-static and 70% more impact resistance.
In this talk, I present a new approach to design architectured ceramics using machine learning (ML) trained with a database of hundreds of structures from finite element analysis. We also incorporate a self-learning algorithm for discovering high-performing ceramics, where inferior designs are phased out for superior candidates. Bio-inspiration, when combined with recent advancements in digital technologies, has the potential to revolutionize the application of ceramics beyond existing niche applications by offering enhanced performance and improved functionality.
Want to learn more? Register below to join us on February 7th with Behnam Ashrafi!
About The Speaker
Behnam Ashrafi, Ph. D, M. Eng
Dr. Behnam Ashrafi is a Senior Research Officer and Team Leader for the Novel Materials & Coatings group at the Aerospace Manufacturing Technology Centre of the National Research Council Canada. He received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, in 2000, and his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in 2004 and 2008, respectively. Dr. Ashrafi has been an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Materials Engineering at McGill University and an Associate Fellow of Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI) since 2019. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Association for Composite Structures and Materials since 2019, vice-chair for the Montreal Chapter of the American Society of Materials (ASM) since 2019, and a Scientific Committee member of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) since 2017. His research primarily focuses on processing and characterizing advanced materials for aerospace, space, automotive, and defense applications. Dr. Ashrafi has co-authored three patents, over 60 journal articles, and over 60 conference articles. This work has been recognized by multiple awards including NRC’s Aero Future Initiative, an NRC IP Achievement Award, and he was a finalist for the Create the Future Design Contest co-sponsored by Tech Briefs magazine and the Society of Automotive Engineering (SAE) in 2021.