Research Projects

Foam materials have found several applications such as energy absorption, noise reduction, filtration, biomedical implants, and heat dissipation. However, the foam designs for these applications have typically been very different. For example, foams that are used for heat dissipations have typically been poor sound absorbers. In this project, we propose to design, fabricate, and demonstrate multi-functional foam materials that can perform combined heat sinking and noise reduction in the same functional volume. This challenge is addressed by first designing the unit-cell for multiple functionality and then building up the unit cell to macroscale for noise attenuating heat-sink structure. The designed geometries will be fabricated using an additive manufacturing technique. The proposed periodic multi-functional foam materials are highly desirable in a variety of applications including consumer electronics cooling, motors, automotive, and datacenters.