Name: Lukas Egloff

Supervisors: Florian Bouville and Eduardo Saiz

Interlocking mechanisms are in theory extremely effective at diffusing damages because it allows elements to slide but at the same time creates local crack-blocking compressive stresses in response to macroscopic crack-opening tensile stresses. Now the real challenge is to develop processes capable of programming interlocking in the microstructure at the micron and nano scale independently of the composition. The objective of this thesis is to develop a new process based additive manufacturing that will make possible the fabrication of interlocking elements at the micron scale in centimetre-sized sample. HD DLP can produce 3D sample by illuminating photo curable polymer layers through pixel based light projection. The fabrication of interlocking elements can thus be directly controlled using pixel-based exposure modulation in the layer produced. This project is funded through the ERC Starting Grant SSTEEL.