MechE Seminar Series: J. William Boley

Speaker: J. William Boley

Title: ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING OF ELCTRONIC SKINS AND MUSCULOFASCIAL MULTIFUNCTIONAL STRUCTURES

Abstract: Materials of the future require burgeoning combinations of outstanding properties (e.g.’s, mechanical, electrical, and stimuli-responsiveness). My talk will cover two broad examples of current and ongoing work from our group towards this effort. The first example will cover our work on designing liquid metal emulsions for 3D printed soft conductors and electrochemically active materials to form multifunctional electronic skins. We integrate the conductive emulsions in a hybrid manufacturing process to rapidly prototype wireless wearable haptics devices. We employ the electrochemically active emulsions for stretchable batteries and soft, self-powered keyboards. The second example highlights our work on developing new polymer composites that serve as synthetic musculofascial analogues for high stiffness, high toughness 4D printed electrically controllable multifunctional structures that detect and tolerate damage. The actuators formed by these materials generate stresses and specific forces that are larger than any other 3D printed actuators to date, with self-sensing and closed loop control capabilities, and can tolerate and detect damage from loads more than 105 time their own weight.

About the Speaker: J. William (Will) Boley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Materials Science at Boston University (BU). His research group focuses understanding and harnessing the relationships between materials synthesis, assembly process, and multiscale architecture in AM to create new multifunctional materials and systems. He completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees at the University of Kentucky, and Ph.D. at Purdue University. He conducted two postdoctoral trainings prior to joining BU, first at Purdue University, and then at Harvard University. He is a recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and the 2024 ASME Rising Stars Award.