Pierre-Thomas Brun (Princeton)

Building with fluids: from fluid flows to tangible structures

Since the Bronze Age, humans have used the inherent compliance of liquids to shape matter and construct objects. Metal casting, glass blowing, and painting are all processes where a final construct is obtained following the solidification of an initial liquid phase. This concept has matured throughout history into many industrial processes, e.g., in the polymer industry. Those engineering successes, however, come at the expense of simplicity. Specifically, processes are generally tuned empirically with compromises between versatility and reproducibility. I propose to explore new paradigms in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of structured and functional materials, using free surface gravity-driven flows and harnessing their fluidic instabilities. Three examples will be presented: 

(1) a fluid-instability based approach for digitally fabricating geometrically complex uniformly sized structures in molten glass,

(2) the rapid fabrication of nearly uniform hemispherical elastic shells by drainage and

(3) their pneumatic actuation towards shape morphing applications.