Novel 3D-Printed Compliant Mechanisms for Women’s Sportswear
During my time in the class 2.S983 Sports Technology I had the opportunity to work alongside engineers at MIT and Adidas as we designed novel ways to implement 3D-printed, compliant mechanisms into sportswear to improve user comfort and product durability. I acted as my team’s technical lead.
Personal Contribution: ideation, meeting with stakeholders and sponsors, rapid prototyping using 3D printing (SLA and FDM, over 300 total prints), modeling sophisticated parts using CAD (SOLIDWORKS and Fusion 360), full development of a novel physical model relating the geometry of a compliant mechanism with its relevant force constraints, presenting research to a general audience.
Brainstorming Some initial concept sketches for compliant mechanisms that may be used for fastening in sportswear.
One of over 100 compliant mechanisms our team designed and prototyped in the first six weeks.
Conceptual Understanding
Our team spent the first six weeks of the project simply gaining an understanding of compliant mechanisms - what they are, how they function, and how to effectively manufacture them. During this time we 3D printed over 100 iterations of different mechanisms to gauge their effectiveness and optimize material selection.
Iterative Design
In the process of generating our final design our team went through over fifty unique iterations, each one printed, tested, and improved.
Final design, capable of almost doubling its length with a small amount of force applied. It also has a negative Poisson ratio, meaning that it can be easily locked into the compressed position.
Our mechanism in action - this design makes it much easier to put on and remove a sports bra, leading to a far better user experience.
Mathematical Model
After creating our unique final design, our team created a mathematical model that can be used to optimize different properties within our mechanism by changing certain geometric constraints.