Abstract: Polymer nanocomposites have a great potential to be a dominant coating material in a wide range of applications in the automotive, aerospace, ship-making, construction, and pharmaceutical industries.However, how to realize design sustainability of this type of nanostructured materials and how to ensure the true optimality of the product quality and process performance in coating manufacturing remain as a mountaintop area.The major challenges arise from the intrinsic multiscale nature of the material-process-product system and the need to manipulate the high levels of complexity and uncertainty in design and manufacturing processes.In this work, the challenging objectives of sustainable design and manufacturing are simultaneously accomplished by resorting to multiscale systems theory and engineering sustainability principles.The principal idea is to achieve exceptional system performance through concurrent characterization and optimization of materials, product and associated manufacturing processes covering a wide range of length and time scales.Multiscale modeling and simulation techniques ranging from microscopic molecular modeling to classical continuum modeling are seamlessly coupled.The integration of different methods and theories at individual scales allows the quantitative prediction of macroscopic system performance from the fundamental molecular behavior.Furthermore, mathematically rigorous and methodologically viable approaches are pursued to achieve sustainability-goal-oriented design of material-process-product systems.The introduced methodology can greatly facilitate experimentalists in novel material invention and new knowledge discovery.At the same time, it can provide scientific guidance and reveal various new opportunities and effective strategies for achieving sustainable manufacturing.The methodological attractiveness will be fully demonstrated by a detailed case study on the design of thermoset nanocomposite coatings.

Key words: sustainable design, multiscale modeling and simulation, polymer nanocomposites

摘要： Polymer nanocomposites have a great potential to be a dominant coating material in a wide range of applications in the automotive, aerospace, ship-making, construction, and pharmaceutical industries.However, how to realize design sustainability of this type of nanostructured materials and how to ensure the true optimality of the product quality and process performance in coating manufacturing remain as a mountaintop area.The major challenges arise from the intrinsic multiscale nature of the material-process-product system and the need to manipulate the high levels of complexity and uncertainty in design and manufacturing processes.In this work, the challenging objectives of sustainable design and manufacturing are simultaneously accomplished by resorting to multiscale systems theory and engineering sustainability principles.The principal idea is to achieve exceptional system performance through concurrent characterization and optimization of materials, product and associated manufacturing processes covering a wide range of length and time scales.Multiscale modeling and simulation techniques ranging from microscopic molecular modeling to classical continuum modeling are seamlessly coupled.The integration of different methods and theories at individual scales allows the quantitative prediction of macroscopic system performance from the fundamental molecular behavior.Furthermore, mathematically rigorous and methodologically viable approaches are pursued to achieve sustainability-goal-oriented design of material-process-product systems.The introduced methodology can greatly facilitate experimentalists in novel material invention and new knowledge discovery.At the same time, it can provide scientific guidance and reveal various new opportunities and effective strategies for achieving sustainable manufacturing.The methodological attractiveness will be fully demonstrated by a detailed case study on the design of thermoset nanocomposite coatings.

关键词: sustainable design, multiscale modeling and simulation, polymer nanocomposites