The concept of multifunctionality requires that both design thinking and predictive modelling tools advance beyond those currently used in conventional ‘monofunctional’ engineering fields. Multifunctional design is a multi-physics, multi-objective optimisation problem, and as such, it requires an integrated multi-physics modelling framework to support it. Further development and validation of this integrated modelling framework (Figure 1) are underway.

A physics-based meso-scale finite element model (ABAQUS) was developed to investigate the mechanical and electrochemical behaviour of structural supercapacitors (Figure 2).  This work builds on mechanical models (ABAQUS) (Valkova et al., 2020) and electrochemical models (COMSOL, MATLAB) to predict device performance based on constituent properties, to understand the behaviour of real systems and to facilitate parametric studies into critical parameters for structural supercapacitor design and optimisation.

References

Valkova, M., Greenhalgh, E.S., Shaffer, M.S.P., Kucernak, A., Predicting the compaction of hybrid multilayer woven composite reinforcement stacks, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, Volume 133, 2020, 105851. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesa.2020.105851