The Mechanics of Biological Materials/Structures Laboratory at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is seeking to fill a Postdoctoral Research Associate position working on a NIH supported research project. In this five-year research project, we intend to elucidate the effect of proteoglycans on the age-related deterioration of bone quality and to develop therapeutic strategies for preventing or deterring such adverse effect.

In the Materials and Technology Center of Robotics at Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), we are looking for a Ph.D. student in Robotic Materials to perform a pioneering research in bio-hybrid materials for Aerial Robotics.

The Center is based on the institutional partnership between the Imperial College London and Empa.

In this study, we developed a micromechanical model for the growth and remodeling of a soft tissue based on the concurrent action of collagen deposition and degradation. We assumed in the model that collagen degradation causes a reduction in the fiber radius, while collagen deposition can increase both the radius and length of the collagen fibers growing under load. The latter arises from the assumption that collagen is deposited in an unstressed state, which increases the reference length of a fiber growing under mechanical load.

The stretchability of metal materials is often limited by the onset and development of necking instability. For instance, necking of lithium metal often occurs at low strains and thus hinders its practical applications in stretchable lithium batteries. Substrate/metal bilayers are emerging as a promising solution to the stringent stretchability requirement of metal electrodes and current collectors in flexible and stretchable batteries.

Location

Khalifa University of Science and Technology, main campus, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Website: www.ku.ac.ae

Duration

The position is available from September 2019 for up to 34 months. 

About the role

Smart soft materials, because of their mechanical flexibility and quick response to multi-physics stimuli, have drawn considerable attention over the past few years. Here, we present controllable wrinkling patterns of a liquid crystal polymer film attached on a soft substrate, controlled by laser illumination that holds unique optical characteristics of high coherence and irradiance.

The mechanical behavior of athermal random fiber networks embedding particulate inclusions is studied in this work. Composites in which the filler size is comparable with the mean segment length of the network are considered. Inclusions are randomly distributed in the network at various volume fractions, and cases in which fibers are rigidly bonded to fillers and in which no such bonding is imposed are studied separately. In the presence of inclusions, the small strain modulus increases, while the ability of the network to strain stiffen decreases relative to the unfilled network case.