You're invited to attend
"Harnessing Multi-Functional Composites
for Re-Programmable Aerospace Structures"
by
Maria Sakovsky
Assistant Professor | Aeronautics and Astronautics Department | Stanford University
Thursday, April 13
3 - 4 p.m.
Student Success Center, Clary Theatre
About the Seminar:
Structures typically have fixed properties necessitating a compromise of performance over a wide range of operating conditions. As a result, there is interest in on-demand adaptation of multi-physics performance in structural systems to increase efficiency when operating in changing or unknown environments. This approach targets applications ranging from morphing wings to smart spacecraft instruments to soft robots. This talk will explore three examples of programmable systems using shape adaptation and multi-functional composite structures. The work addresses highly multi-stable systems for robotic locomotion, the stiffness modulation in large lattice structures, and compliant mechanisms for re-programmable electromagnetic performance in satellite communications and remote sensing. This talk will highlight the multi-scale design of these systems, the role of anisotropy of the fiber-reinforced composite materials used, and embedding functionality in lightweight structures.
About the Speaker:
Maria Sakovsky is an Assistant Professor in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford University. Her work studies space structures with reconfigurable geometry, stiffness, and even non-mechanical performance to enable aerospace systems to respond to unknown environments. She received her BSc in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto and MSc and PhD in Space Engineering at Caltech, where she developed a deployable satellite antenna based on composite material origami. She concurrently worked with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on developing cryogenically rated thin-ply composite antennas for deep space missions. After her PhD, she was awarded the ETH Zürich postdoctoral fellowship to investigate reconfigurable antennas based on mechanical metamaterials.