Abstract: Today’s space structures are built on Earth, folded for delivery to space, and then deployed to their full size once in orbit. However, this traditional approach yields minimal opportunities for dramatic advances in terms of mass efficiency and the operational size of the structure. This seminar presents our novel approach to designing future space structures based on metamaterial technologies and advanced manufacturing in space. By removing the constraints associated with launch and deployment, we create a paradigm shift in the design of future structures and enable extended structures such as solar arrays, antennas, and optical systems where size is critical to performance. Specifically, our team integrates novel dissipative metamaterials and topological polarization along with crumpled designs and enables future space structures that can be modularly assembled in space. Thus, we can achieve large scalable structures beyond deployment limits and realize space designs that cannot be launched. This talk will cover the novel design of a 1MW solar array that is optimized for high precision and mass efficiency. We exploit crumpling for stiffness enhancement, metadamping for quick stabilization, and topological polarization for robustness and damage tolerance. We also demonstrate proof of the concept via 3D printing a lab-scale prototype which is tested in the PEPL vacuum chamber and vibration testing facilities at SPRL.

Bio: Dr. Serife Tol is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She received her Ph.D. (2017) from Georgia Institute of Technology and her M.S. (2012) and B.S. (2009) degrees from Middle East Technical University (METU, Ankara, Turkey), all in mechanical engineering. She worked as a Test and Analysis Engineer in the Defense Systems Technologies Business Sector at ASELSAN (Turkey, Ankara) between 2009 and 2012. During her graduate studies at METU, she was elected as an M.S. fellow of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. Prior to joining UM in 2018, she was a visiting scholar in the Civil and Materials Engineering Department at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Tol’s research interests include metamaterials, metasurfaces, phononic crystals, smart materials, electromechanical systems, vibrations, and wave propagation. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and DARPA. She has published over 40 journal articles and conference proceedings in the field. Dr. Tol’s research group is recognized with multiple best paper awards, Alexander Azarkhin Scholarship (2021) and Ivor K. McIvor Award (2022, 2023), and she is the recipient of the John F.Ullrich Education Excellence Award (2023).