Developing Methodology for Description of Material Dynamics
Simulation and modeling based engineering research is globally recognized as the threshold of a new era, one in which unprecedented improvements in the health, security, productivity, and competitiveness of our nation may be possible. As engineers we seek solutions to problems ranging from finding alternative energy sources, to global warming, to sustainable infrastructures, to curing disease, and personalizing medicine. These problems are complex and messy, and their solution requires a partnership among experiment, theory, and simulation working across all of the disciplines of science and engineering. There is abundant evidence and numerous reports documenting that our nation is at risk of losing its competitive edge. Our continued capability as a nation to lead in simulation-based discovery and innovation is key to our ability to compete in the 21st century.
The simulation and modeling of dispersed systems are CCNY strengths, which mesh well with the central Chicago MRSEC goal of deriving design principles for next-generation materials. The focal topic of the research effort is the dynamics of material synthesis, an area that is both a crucial and poorly understood aspect in materials science. A number of material formation processes, including assembly from finely divided particles due to deposition processes from drops, are far from equilibrium. Even when the ultimate assembled structure is an equilibrium structure, the demands of economics require rapid manufacturing of materials, and it is thus essential to promote the assembly through non-equilibrium forcing. Far from equilibrium conditions render modeling of material processing in heterogeneous systems difficult. In these cases, numerical simulation techniques based on understanding of dynamics of the discrete components of the mixture provide an avenue to understanding of the underlying physics. The controlling parameters can be identified, and the simulation results support development of highly desirable constitutive models and bulk modeling. The overarching goal of the research in the CCNY-Chicago PREM is thus to develop methodology for description of material dynamics, with potential for major impact across many fields.
The CCNY PREM partnership is between a group of seven faculty and their research groups at the City College of New York (CCNY) with the MRSEC at the University of Chicago. At Chicago, the focus of the MRSEC is to develop design principles for the next generation of materials. The program, with a focus on experimental studies, involves a number of established international leaders in soft material physics and has made many valuable contributions to material physics in recent years.The mission of the PREM is to establish a leadership position in the dynamics of material synthesis at CCNY through partnership with the Chicago MRSEC. Capitalizing on CCNY strength in dynamic simulation, modeling, and experiment, a long-term synergistic relation will be developed with Chicago, by complementing the leading edge experiments and analytical theory in the MRSEC.
The Chicago Materials Research Center (MRSEC) has established a highly successful, multidisciplinary approach to issues of technological importance at the forefront of materials research. The overarching goal, common to all of our Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs), is to produce the design principles for the next generation of materials. Each of the three IRGs addresses a fundamental issue applicable to a broad class of materials. Our ambitious programs attack some of the deepest challenges of materials research. Common themes include investigating materials formed far from equilibrium, exploring new paradigms for materials fabrication and response especially at the micro-scale and nano-scale, and exploiting feedback between structure and dynamics. These themes, reappearing in each IRG described in the linked paged below, deal with important basic problems exploring design principles that are far from conventional and whose prospects are far from certain.
Interdisciplinary Research Groups Examples of issues where direct interaction of simulation and experimental investigation are possible through the partnership include drop impact and spreading (IRG1- UChicago: Nagel, Zhang; CCNY: Lee, Koplik, Watkins, Morris), nanoparticle assembly including cases of Janus or other anisotropic particles (IRG 2- UChicago: Talapin, Witten; CCNY: Kretzschmar, Koplik, Morris), biomolecular assembly into fibril and sheet structures (MRSEC Seed; CCNY: Tu, Koplik), and jamming and relaxation of dense colloids and granular materials (IRG3- UChicago: Nagel, Jaeger, Witten, Dinner; CCNY: Morris, Shattuck, Koplik).
To learn more about the research conducted by the CCNY-UChicago partnership please visit the links below:
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