COMPASS is establishing the methodology for the general description of particles with complex geometry and internal architecture suitable for their subsequent use in the modeling of complex systems. Particles of various shapes from spheroids to fibers conveniently lend themselves to a graph-based description accounting for their imperfections and polydispersity.

COMPASS is establishing and validating the relationships between graph-based representation of particles and mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties representing basic functionalities of particle systems. These relationships emerge from the consideration of transport phenomena and connectivity patterns in the context of networks. Unlike social, financial, ecological and other networks, we will consider networks that transport stress, charge and mass, that produce unprecedented system behavior and unique property combinations described by a unifying graph theoretical and network science framework. Such phenomena and relations will be established across length and time scales from the atomistic to the macroscopic.

COMPASS is developing simple pathways to complex particle systems by exploiting emergence, self-assembly and critical phenomena in communities of interacting polydisperse particles. We are assessing their properties and quantify complexity measures by utilizing the approaches developed in Research Areas 1 and 2. Such particle systems will greatly expand the spectrum of materials for additive manufacturing and 3D printing.

COMPASS is developing graph-based methodologies for particle-based additive manufacturing of complex architected materials. Using the theoretical and experimental toolboxes developed in Research Areas 1, 2, and 3, COMPASS will translate the acquired knowledge in the form of case studies of complex particle systems transporting stress, charge, heat, and/or mass.