Soft active materials - when mechanics meets chemistry
Event details
| Date | 15.06.2012 |
| Hour | 11:00 › 12:00 |
| Speaker | Prof. Zhigang Suo, Harvard University |
| Location |
MEB010
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Soft materials can mimic a salient feature of life: deformation in response to diverse stimuli. For example, an electric field can cause an elastomer to stretch several times its length. As another example, a change in pH can cause a gel to swell many times its volume. The deformation is large and reversible. Long and flexible polymers can be covalently crosslinked to form a three-dimensional network, namely, an elastomer. The network can imbibe a solvent and swell, forming an elastomeric gel. Gels have many uses, including personal care, drug delivery, tissue engineering, microfluidic regulation, and oilfield management. Mixtures of macromolecular elastomers and mobile molecules also constitute most tissues of plants and animals. The amount of swelling can be large and reversible, regulated by environmental stimuli, such as force, electric field, pH, salinity, and light. This talk describes a theory that combines the mechanics of nonlinear fields and the chemistry of molecular mixtures. The theory is illustrated with examples of swelling-induced large deformation, contact, and bifurcation. The theory is further illustrated with recent experiments.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- Prof. Stéphanie Lacour (EPFL/STI/IMT/LSBI)