A research team at Tufts University has introduced Morpho, a revolutionary open-source software for optimizing soft materials. This breakthrough tool simplifies the complex process of modeling soft and fluidic materials, making advanced material science accessible to a wider audience.
In a significant leap forward for material science and engineering, a team of researchers at Tufts University led by Tim Atherton, a professor of physics, has unveiled Morpho, an innovative open-source software designed to solve complex shape optimization problems for soft materials.
“Many things that are interesting in science and engineering are shape optimization problems,” Atherton said in a news release. “That might mean coming up with the best possible contours for a city to accommodate traffic and pedestrians, or the shape of a riverbed with water flowing over it.”
Traditionally, designing for rigid materials like metal or concrete has been relatively straightforward due to well-established mathematical models. However, soft materials — including biological tissues, membranes and even shape-shifting fluids — pose a unique set of challenges due to their ability to deform under various forces. These challenges are evident in applications such as artificial heart valves and soft robotic materials.
Atherton, along with James Adler, professor of mathematics, and Chaitanya Joshi, a postdoctoral scholar in physics, developed Morpho to address these complexities. The software, detailed in a study published in the journal Nature Computational Science, offers a user-friendly, free platform that caters to a broad spectrum of design scenarios.
“Traditional modeling packages are used for geometric optimization of rigid structures, and are not usually designed to solve shape optimization problems for soft materials,” Atherton added. “Engineers typically have to come up with their own mathematical formulations for soft materials, which can be challenging. Morpho provides a set of tools to help anyone conveniently solve these problems.”
Soft materials exhibit inherently complex behaviors when interacting with their environment. For example, membranes can be influenced by compression, liquid flows, pressure and vibrations, making their final shapes unpredictable.
To model these behaviors, Morpho employs finite element analysis, breaking down materials into smaller, manageable shapes and solving equations for each to predict optimal configurations.
Beyond soft materials, Morpho’s capabilities extend to solving packing problems and modeling heterogeneous systems that include both hard and soft components. This versatility makes it a valuable tool for a wide range of industries, from pharmaceutical manufacturing to logistics and biomedical engineering.
“You don’t really need a lot of training on the program to tackle complex problems,” added Atherton. “I’ve seen undergrads within a couple of weeks of learning Morpho use the package to solve research-grade problems, which is amazing.”
Source: Tufts University