Elastic Polymers in Complex Geometries: From Experimental Additive Manufacturing to Vibro-Acoustic Modelling

Participating speaker: Marina León Calero, ICTP-CSIC, Spain.

Abstract: Additive manufacturing enables the production of elastic polymer structures with geometrical complexity such as lattice configurations, auxetic patterns, graded architectures, that are impossible to achieve by conventional methods. At ICTP-CSIC, we work across the full research chain: from polymer formulation and functional composite processing to multi-technology additive manufacturing and systematic mechanical characterisation. The combination of geometry, material composition, and process parameters generates a large design space for application optimization. In collaboration with the University of Burgos, we have begun to explore how this design freedom can be applied to vibration damping applications. These first results point to a promising research direction, but also to a clear limitation: experimental data on AM-produced elastomers under dynamic loading remains scarce, particularly across the frequency range of practical interest for electric vehicles: 500 to 3000 Hz. This is the open problem. Constitutive models validated for highly compliant AM-produced elastomers under dynamic loading remain limited, and their integration into topology optimisation workflows is largely unresolved. This talk presents our experimental capabilities, our current results in vibration damping applications, and the specific points where collaboration with groups specialised in vibro-acoustic modelling offers the clearest path forward.