2023 Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) - Additive Manufacturing and Characterization of Rationally Designed Auxetic Structures
The College of Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) is a unique opportunity for college of engineering undergraduate students to engage in hands-on research with a faculty mentor while using critical thinking, collaborative, and entrepreneurial skills. SURP is an 8-week long program (can be non-contiguous), and students are expected to spend at least 20 hours/week working on their research projects and additional time preparing and presenting their poster for the annual SURP symposium; SURP students and their faculty mentor will agree upon a start date and timeline for their research project (with a suggested start date of June 26th, 2023). The goals of SURP are to:
- Help Cal Poly Engineering students develop professionally and enhance their portfolios for future employment.
- Give opportunities for CENG faculty (including lecturers) to advance their research/project agendas over the summer quarter.
- Build lasting student-faculty mentoring relationships
- Provide opportunities for industrial and other external sponsors to work with Cal Poly faculty and students to advance connections, gain access to Cal Poly talent and capabilities, and engage in valuable collaborative activities.
Our Summer 2023 SURP will support over 30 projects (with some projects taking 2 students) for 39 students. You can apply to up to 3 projects on MustangJobs (each project has its own job posting). You need not be in the same department as the faculty advisor to apply to a given project.
Each SURP student participant will receive a CENG Summer Research Grant of $3,500.
Please note that the grant amount is fixed, and additional funding is not available. This grant will be disbursed through the Financial Aid Office toward the end of the summer. Preference will be given to students who have not yet participated in SURP.
This Project
Project Title: Additive Manufacturing and Characterization of Auxetic Structures
Faculty Advisor: Long Wang
Faculty Email: lwang38@calpoly.edu
Faculty Department: CE/ENVE
Number of Students for this project: 2
When most of the materials are stretched in one direction, they would shrink in another direction, as an example of Poisson’s effect. However, certain “auxetic” materials exhibit negative Poisson’s ratios, which indicate that they could expand transversally while being stretched longitudinally. Due to their unique mechanical behavior, auxetic materials have various application potentials, including aerospace structures, energy absorption, and biomaterial engineering. There has been research on computationally designing structures of controlled auxetic performance. However, limited work has been conducted on integrating the theoretical designs with practical additive manufacturing process and actual structural material properties. Therefore, this project aims to establish a framework for rationally designing, manufacturing, and characterizing auxetic structures. Specific research tasks include:
1) optimizing stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing process to manufacture designed auxetic structures using different UV-curable resins, including brittle polymers and elastomers;
2) conducting mechanical tests on 3D printed structures;
3) quantifying the achieved Poisson’s ratios and analyzing the stress distribution in the structures using digital image correlation technique;
4) performing linear and non-linear finite element analysis to computationally characterize the structural performance and compare with initial design and experimental measurements.
The students will be working with Dr. Wang’s research group and computational mechanics experts.
HOW TO APPLY:
PLEASE SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING TWO DOCUMENTS VIA HANDSHAKE AND SEE RUBRIC BELOW FOR EVALUATION CRITERIA. YOU CAN APPLY TO UP TO THREE SURP PROJECTS, BUT CAN ONLY BE AWARDED ONE.
- Submit your resume
- Submit a cover letter that answers the following three questions:
- Describe why you are interested in this research project.
- Describe how participating in SURP and working on this research project, will help you advance your academic and professional development goals
- Describe how your past experiences have helped prepare you for your participation in SURP. This includes relevant academic, other formal, and informal preparation.
INCOMPLETE APPLICATIONS COULD DISQUALIFY YOU FROM FURTHER CONSIDERATION.
Note that applications are due April 30; selected students will be notified by no later than May 12.