ESR 13 – Mechanics of Porous and Structured Materials
Loris Domenicale – University of Southampton and Lucideon Limited
The Project: The research addresses the problem of using polymers in combination with 3D-printing for biomedical applications. One possible application area is the development of synthetic bone materials from mechanics and manufacturing standpoints. The aim is to understand structure-property relationships for a class of architectured materials and to translate this understanding to a tangible biomedical product.
The manufacturing process will be FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling), which deposits a filament of fused polymer one layer at a time. The project will investigate how control of the tool path and the way an object is 3D-printed can control mechanical properties. Development may result in the examination of mechanical properties of functionally graded materials, the study of the role of filament overlap on the bulk stiffness, and the investigation of contact mechanics of porous structures. These topics will be developed both from the theoretical and the manufacturing points of view to reconcile theory with measurements.
The Researcher: Loris Domenicale received his Bachelor and Master degrees at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. His BSc in “Mathematics for Engineering” gave him a solid background in mathematics, yet with an engineering attitude. During his Master degree in “Mathematical Engineering”, he specialized in Fluid Dynamics (Continuum mechanics). The topic of the Master thesis was “Travelling Waves Vorticity and Enstrophy Transient Dynamics in Couette and Poiseuille Flows”. It was collaboratively developed at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of Politecnico di Torino, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the Department of Mathematics.
Hobbies are his most effective way to relax and get his mind ready for the next day of hard work. For this reason, there are many activities in Loris’ collection. Running, together with speedcubing (Rubik cube solving), learning languages, cooking, and reading Astronomy books, to name a few. Sports have always been in Loris’ life: karate, volleyball, beach volleyball, parkour, motocross, climbing, and running, depending on what his studies allowed him to do.