Suwon Bae’s new paper is now out in Macromolecules. This manuscript presents his molecular dynamics simulations examining the thermo-mechanical behavior of glassy polymers assembled from single chain polymer nanoparticles. Suwon’s simulations showed surprisingly good agreement with our earlier experimental work on the same class of materials. This is our third paper in our ongoing collaboration with the Diesendruck group at The Technion, stay tuned for the fourth currently underway following Or Galant’s visit in our lab this summer.
The Effect of Intrachain Cross-Linking for Glassy Polymers
The NY State Fair
The MMD lab made its annual sojourn to the NY State Fair this weekend to host a booth in the 4-H Youth Building. We got to share our enthusiasm for polymers and mechanochemistry with the myriad of people spending their Labor Day at the fair. Joy used her materials science expertise to take our silly putty making procedure to a new level. Special thanks to our teen volunteer Diego who helped us keep up with demand during the late morning rush.
4-H Career Explorations
Graduate students Michael and Steven revised and ran our University U activity at the 4-H Career Explorations event last month. This year we added a design challenge – after testing individual materials, students tried to make an assembly that gave a J-shaped force-deflection curve under tension. We tested their designs on our Zwick Universal Testing machine (shown below).
DOE Early Career Award
Prof Silberstein wins the Department of Energy Early Career Award. See here for the Cornell Chronicle article.
PhD Qualifying Exam Success!
Congratulations to first year graduate students Michael Buche, Steven Yang, and Joy Zhang for passing their Q exams in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science respectively!
Yuval’s work on the Cover of the Journal of Polymer Science: Polymer Chemistry
Postdoc Yuval Vidavsky’s paper entitled Modulating Metallopolymer Mechanical Properties by Controlling Metal Ligand Crosslinking is featured as the cover article in the June issue of the Journal of Polymer Science: Polymer Chemistry. Yuval conceived, synthesized, and tested a series of polymers that can be reversibly crosslinked by addition and removal of copper cations, thereby tailoring the stiffness and strength. Further, he showed that the crosslink strength and therefore the dynamic behavior of the material could be modulated in the solid state by exposure to different gasses. PhD candidate Suwon Bae made a key contribution to this work by conducting and analyzing the mechanical experiments. Credit to first year graduate student Steven Yang for making the cover art from Yuval’s specimens.
Naigeng Chen defends PhD thesis
Congratulations to Naigeng Chen for passing his B-exam yesterday with flying colors! His thesis entitled “Experimental and Computational Study of Non-woven Damage Mechanics” is well, a comprehensive experimental and computational study of non-woven damage mechanics, using a commercial polypropylene non-woven series (Typar SF) as his experimental system. This picture from right after the deliberations might seem like a highly posed congratulatory hand shake with committee member Prof Paul Dawson, but really its a candid shot of committee member Prof Leigh Phoenix with the thesis draft.
Medical Implant Paper out in PNAS
Our collaborative work with Minglin Ma’s group (Cornell Biological and Environmental Engineering) on a potential medical treatment for type 1 diabetes is now published in PNAS. The paper entitled “Designing a retrievable and scalable cell encapsulation device for potential treatment of type 1 diabetes” was led by Minglin’s PhD students Duo An and Alan Chiu. Our research group provided analysis of the mechanical robustness of each of the thread designs. This mechanical durability of the treatment delivery device is essential for its retrievability. Please see the Cornell press release for more information.
Welcome to new graduate students!
Advisor matching season is coming to a close and we have three new PhD candidates in the MMD lab. Welcome to Michael Buche, Steven Yang, and Joy Zhang who come from the fields of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering respectively.
Bond Strength Determination Manuscript
Naigeng’s work on determining bond strength within non-wovens is now published in Experimental Mechanics. In this meticulous combined experimental and computational effort Naigeng outlines and then validates a method for determining the bond strength distribution within non-wovens formed from fiber-fiber bonds. This method can be used as long as the non-woven can be imaged (e.g. via computed tomography or confocal microscopy) and then mechanically tested. Please contact us if you would like help with implementation.
Mechanics for Material Design 