Sujet de stage / Master 2 Internship

The internship is part of a research project aiming to obtain by additive manufacturing a new class of nanocomposites metamaterials (lattice materials) combining lightness and mechanical strength. The objective of the internship is to determined via Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) the viscoelastic properties such as Young's modulus, shear modulus, compression and shear viscosity, or glass transition temperature, of the new printing resins formulated in the laboratory in this context.

Reducing the density of materials is a promising route to reduce our energy footprint. One solution is to replace massive materials with lattice materials formed by carefully arranged micro-beams. Among them, random architectural structures inspired by bone structure have the best assets with isotropic mechanical response and unprecedented performance in terms of elastic modulus to density ratio while meeting the challenges of the circular economy. These metamaterials are manufactured by 3D printing and, of all the manufacturing technologies available, printing by UV polymerisation of organic liquid resin is the most promising.

These resins can be loaded with nanoparticles to modulate the properties of the resulting metamaterials and enhance their mechanical strength. In this context, a variety of resins has been generated, but the mechanical performance of the printed material has not yet been evaluated. In addition, many printing parameters are also known to affect the final properties. Thus, the characterization of the mechanical properties of these resins is necessary to control the performance of these new materials.

The objective of the internship is to evaluate by Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) the viscoelastic properties such as Young's modulus, shear modulus, compressional and shear viscosity, and glass transition temperature of the new resins formulated in the laboratory. The aim is to establish the link between the formulation and the mechanical properties.
The internship will be divided into two parts: 1) the study of mechanical properties as a function of different formulations; 2) the study of mechanical properties as a function of different printing parameters.