Damage and Thermo-Chemo-Mechanical Coupling in Soft Materials

Organizers

Maryam Shakiba, Virginia Tech
Nikolaos Bouklas, Cornell University
Roozbeh Dargazany, Michigan State University

Description

The symposium aims to cover a broad range of topics related to research in the mechanics and multi-physics of polymers and soft materials, emphasizing damage and fracture. Polymers are continuously exposed to detrimental environmental conditions and mechanical loadings. Environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, magnetic field, UV exposure, and chemicals coupled with mechanical loadings degrade the polymers' properties and reduce their lifetime. At the same time, advanced and responsive materials are being designed to harvest a smart response from the coupling of external stimuli and mechanical loading. Additionally, resolving the damage cascade that can span the molecular, mesoscopic, and structural length scales poses a longstanding challenge that requires understanding of chain statistics, network architecture, and mesoscopic characteristics for composites. Physics-based and microstructure-based models for these multi-physical systems are necessary to predict the highly nonlinear responses of this class of materials. Topics of interest include but are not limited to fundamental mechanics and multiscale modeling of polymers, experiments and modeling of novel multifunctional polymers, and polymer design and processing.  This symposium aims to provide a platform for researchers from academia, industry and national labs to present, discuss, and exchange the latest development in theoretical, computational, and experimental studies on multi-physics modeling of advanced polymeric materials. The mini-symposium seeks to encourage future collaboration between the attendees.