The key theme of this book is an exploration of how recent advances across three related scientific fields are intertwined - the developments in metamaterials, the automated optimal design of innovative electronic, electromagnetic and mechatronic devices, and 3D printing. Developments in the field of automated optimal design have enabled the design of innovative electronic, electromagnetic and mechatronic devices, but there is a risk that design uncertainties and fabrication tolerances dictated by conventional manufacturing techniques will limit the practical synthesis and industrial realisation of these novel designs. The solution might be found in new manufacturing possibilities offered by 3D printing technologies and techniques for the fabrication of conductive layers in low and high frequency applications. The book approaches the topic from several perspectives, including the design of 3D fields, advances in shape synthesis, the role of additive manufacturing in synthesising metamaterials and manipulating ferromagnetic materials, and the steps from numerical models to printed mechatronic devices. A final chapter discusses design challenges and opportunities in industrial settings. Led by two expert editors, with contributions from authors with a range of backgrounds across academia and industrial research, this book provides key information for researchers, advanced students and industry professionals in advanced manufacturing, mechatronics, and electrical and electronic engineering.
Inspec keywords: optimisation; electric motors; three-dimensional printing; design engineering; prototypes
Other keywords: aggregates (materials); prototypes; shapes (structures); polymers; ceramics; design engineering; electric motors; optimisation; innovation management; three-dimensional printing
Subjects: Engineering materials; Three-dimensional printing; General topics in manufacturing and production engineering; Design; Engineering mechanics; Optimisation; Manufacturing systems
The history of man and human societies has always been closely linked with technology and, consequently, with the materials which permitted technologies to be effective. This happened since very early times in our evolution and it is not by chance that the longer period, that lasted about 3 million years, was named after stone, one of the most extensively and successfully exploited materials, together with perishable wood, bones and skin. However, we consider here materials not existing in nature, but created by man, whose appearance had revolutionary effects on human societies and civilizations. Many technologies sprung from new materials such a long time ago that we now take them for granted, hardly realizing how disruptive their advent was. Some of them go back to the first technological revolution, some thousand years ago.
A design is often understood as a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process; in engineering, it normally refers to a series of steps to be undertaken to create functional products or processes. Much of this book is concerned with various design activities. Optimisation plays a pivotal role in the design process as inevitably we wish to end up with a product which is better, lighter, cheaper and more reliable than what the competition can offer. This necessitates a specification of an objective function- or a set of often conflicting objectives - which we attempt to minimise or maximise simultaneously; we often find, however, that it is impossible to achieve all optima at the same time and we therefore need to compromise, which may not be an easy decision and we therefore need some sound principle to follow rather than making a random choice. This chapter provides a review and critical assessment of recent advances in design optimisation, emphasising the main features and the most promising approaches, finally making some projections regarding possible future developments.
Additive manufacturing (AM) technology has generated a considerable interest not only in the field of fast prototyping, but also in the production of devices. The area of electromagnetic devices has also begun to benefit from this 'revolution', initially intended for mechanical components only. In parallel, the remarkable development of research on materials, which led to the proliferation of a whole set of printing materials added to the 'classic' polymeric bases, contributed to the growth of interest in electromagnetics. The flexibility of a three-dimensional (3D) printing process makes it possible to fabricate a surface exhibiting at least in principle, any shape which means a substantial increase of degrees of freedom in design. This unique feature can tremendously help the practical realisation of the results of an optimal shape design process, where a surface which is 'optimal' from the viewpoint of a prescribed design criterion could exhibit geometric features hardly implementable by means of standard, old technologies. So far, in fact, this has been the bottle-neck severely limiting the gain in performance of a device designed according to a process of numerical optimisation. In contrast, methods of free-form optimisation (FFO)appear to be particularly suited for exploiting a 3D printing process and manufacturing optimal prototypes. The huge conceptual advantage of a combination between optimal shape design methods, for synthesising a device shape, and 3D printing technology, for prototyping the shape, is to create a technique capable of fabricating surfaces characterised by arbitrary curvature and arbitrary distribution of materials.
Innovative electric motors find wide applications across multiple industry branches, including energy production, e-traction, manufacturing plants, industrial automation and variety of consumer appliances. The key question discussed here is what makes an electric motor innovative? In the chapter, the present innovations in electric motor technology and the expected future trends are discussed. The utilised materials are explored and presented with the respective features. The possibilities of innovative materials, to meet the need for increased motor efficiency and new production technologies, are described. Several innovative motors and their applications are illustrated and discussed.
The aim of the chapter is to present the current status and development of magnetic materials and methods of their production. These types of magnetic materials are vital parts of many electromagnetic and electromechanical devices. Magnetic materials are mainly applied in electric motors in a wide range of products, from toys to rockets. The application of ferromagnetic materials is constantly expanding. This chapter is divided into six sub-chapters showing actual production of ferromagnetic materials and ways of developing magnetic materials in the future. Nowadays, we can observe new methods of magnetic materials production and their technology that allows improvement of the parameters of magnetic materials. New magnetic materials could improve and enable the optimization of the parameters of devices with those materials.
Metamaterials are artificial composite media that exhibit unique electromagnetic (EM) properties. The chapter covers selected aspects of the modelling, design, optimisation, and fabrication of metamaterials based on gradient dielectric structures and split-ring resonator (SRR) arrays. In the first part of the chapter, a synthesis method for gradient metamaterials is presented, and its application to a flat focusing lens is studied. Next, we discuss meta-surfaces comprising conductive resonant elements. We present full-wave and equivalent-circuit modelling approaches for resonator arrays and two example designs embracing a flat lens for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC). We also report on the progress in frequency-selective meta-surfaces in the terahertz band. The last part of the chapter discusses 2D/3D printing of effective dielectric media and proposes a method to improve its accuracy and speed.
The fields of both additive manufacturing (AM), also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, and metamaterials have gained great popularity over the last two decades. The emerging field of metamaterials promises to drive artificial materials engineering that will make it possible to tailor the properties of material. That, in turn, will create extraordinary new possibilities, transcending what can currently be done by industry. Without doubt, the rapid advance of AM has acted as an enabling technology for metamaterials, contributing as a valuable tool for prototyping. The AM process is very flexible both for designing parts and joining materials. 3D printing is potentially capable of placing different materials arbitrarily in three dimensions. With the increasing capability of computational simulation and topology optimisation (TO), metamaterials with extremely complex structures can be conceived under premises of optimal design and exploit 3D printing techniques.