Our morphing metal work from last spring was highlighted in a recent PBS Nova Documentary: “Treasured of the Earth: Metals“. Check out Professors Shepherd and Silberstein and graduate student Ilse Van Meerbeek in the future of metals segment. Available on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAboGHdIykA.
Suwon Bae Passes A-Exam
Congratulations to Suwon Bae for passing his A-exam! That’s one big step closer to graduating. He presented his molecular dynamics study on the thermomechanical behavior single chain
polymer nanoparticles (SCPN) as well as his preliminary tensile data on bulk polymers formed from SCPN. Credit to Naigeng for the cheesy post-victory photo.
Simge Defends Masters Thesis
Congratulations to Simge Uzun for successfully defending her MS thesis in Fiber Science! Her thesis entitled “IN–SITU SYNCHROTRON X–RAY AND MICRO–COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY OF NONWOVEN ARAMIDS: DEFORMATION MECHANISMS” covered just one of the many projects she successfully completed in her two years at Cornell.
New non-woven paper in IJSS
Our latest journal paper entitled “In-situ X-ray study of the deformation mechanisms of non-woven polypropylene” is now published in the International Journal of Solids and Structures. This paper was authored by PhD student Naigeng Chen, MS student Simge Uzun, and research scientist Margaret Koker. X-ray scattering and micro computed tomography were combined with uniaxial mechanical testing to investigate the micromechanical mechanisms governing non-woven strength. These experiments were run on our custom experimental setup at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS). We found that the number density of bonds strongly influences the fiber kinematics and overall strength in these meltspun thermoplastics.
Another Summer of Conferences
Prof Silberstein kicked off the summer at the annual Society for Experimental Mechanics conference where she gave of talk on non-woven mechanics focusing on work by PhD student Naigeng Chen. Along with with first author Elizabeth Jones, Prof Silberstein was presented the Hetenyi Award for best paper in Experimental Mechanics from the previous year.
That same week Naigeng presented a poster of his latest non-woven experimental technique at the annual CHESS users meeting on the Cornell campus.
In early August Prof Silberstein gave an invited talk on mechanochemistry at the US-Japan Young Researcher’s symposium on Mechanics of Materials hosted by
Stony Brook University.
Finally, Prof Silberstein, Naigeng, and PhD student Suwon Bai headed up to Montreal for the International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (aka the summer olympics of mechanics). Prof Silberstein and Naigeng each gave talks and Suwon presented a poster.
Morphing Metal published as Advanced Materials cover
Check out our recent journal article with the Shepherd group on a novel metal-elastomer composite that can morph, self-heal, weld to build larger structures, and exhibits multi cycle shape memory.
Affinito-Stewart Grant
Professor Silberstein receives an Affinito-Stewart grant from the President’s Council of Cornell Women.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/08/affinito-stewart-grants-support-12-women-faculty
Move to new lab complete! – MMD lab now in Kimball 290
The MMD lab can now be found on the second floor of Kimball. Check out our awesome new hybrid space!
June Conference Bonanza
Graduate student Meenakshi Sundaram presented his work on interfacial mechanochemistry at the biannual International Conference on Self-Healing Materials (ICSHM).
Professor Silberstein presented a range of the group’s mechanochemistry research at the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM) annual conference, ICSHM, and ASME’s Applied Mechanics and Materials Conference (McMat).
Mechanics for Material Design 