Herein, we report a theoretical study of polymeric nanocomposites to provide physical insight into complex material systems in elastic regions. A self-consistent scheme is adopted to predict piezoresistive characteristics, and the effects of the interface and of tunneling on the effective piezoresistive and electrical properties of the nanocomposites are simulated. The overall piezoresistive sensitivity is predicted to be reduced when the lower interfacial resistivity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and the higher effective stiffness of nanocomposites are considered.

Published in Advanced Materials: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201701353/abstract

Published in Current Gene Therapty: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28494734

Published in Physical Review X: https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.7.021024

PhD positions are available:

I am looking for talented, self-motivated, and enthusiastic students with MSc degree in mechanical or materials engineering. Students with a background in any of the following areas are recommended to apply:

• Solid mechanics and finite element modelling of materials
• Crystal plasticity modelling of polycrystals
• Materials characterization

The selected candidates are expected to start no later than January 2018.  

In this paper, we studied the strain rate dependent failure properties of human diaphragm tissue using uniaxial tensile testing at four strain rates, i.e. 0.0015/s, 65/s, 130/s and 190/s. The custom made quasi-satatic and drop tower based dynamic test setups was used to conduct the tests uptill 200/s strain rate.

A postdoctoral position is available in the area of characterizing the mechanical properties of biological materials. The primary objective is to use experimental methods to investigate the mechanical response of soft tissues. The candidate is responsible to develop and carry out the experiments, analyze the results, and develop computational models to understand the measured properties. Please note that applicants must have previous experience with conducting experiments on soft tissues or soft materials and they are required to have a Ph.D.

The 2017 (tied) winners of the Robert J. Melosh Medal are Matthias Mayr
 (Sandia National Laboratories, previously at TUM, Munich Germany) and Heng Chi (GATech).

A new approach to optimizing a hydrodynamic design of pump diffuser is presented, based on a three-dimensional inverse design method and a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique. The blade shape of the diffuser was designed for a specified distribution of circulation and a given meridional geometry at a low specific speed of 0.109 (non-dimensional) or 280 (m3 /min, m, rpm).

We present a method of modeling nanoparticle (NP) hydrophobicity using coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CG MD) simulations, and apply this to the interaction of lipids with nanoparticles. To model at a coarse-grained level the wettability or hydrophobicity of a given material, we choose the MARTINI coarse-grained force field, and determine through simulation the contact angles of MARTINI water droplets residing on flat regular surfaces composed of various MARTINI bead types (C1, C2, etc.).