A summary of my Ph.D. study

I spent nearly four years on my Ph.D. work from Sept. 2002 to July 2006 under supervision of Professor Klaus Friedrich (highly cited researchers at ISI co-authored more than 700 papers) and Professor Zhong Zhang at the Institute for Composite Materials, Kaiserslautern, Germany. I focus my interests on preparation and characterization of polymer-based nanocomposites, including compounding nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes and nanoclay filled thermoplastic and thermosetting composites, measuring mechanical, fracture, creep and fatigue behaviors as well as thermal and crystallization process. My Ph.D. thesis systematically provided some very interesting creep experimental and modeling results of these nanocomposites. Generally speaking, with the cooperation of nanofillers, creep deformation/creep rate and even creep lifetime are significantly reduced or extended, respectively. An improved grade of engineering application, where creep resistance is a requirement, of these kinds of nanocomposites is potentially achieved. Several papers based on these results were published, accepted and submitted at the moment.

Upon my graduation, I got a PostDoc offer from Professor Nancy Sottos at UIUC and dissolved myself into a novel and exciting field from August 2006: self-healing materials! That is a very interdisciplinary group with professors and graduates and postdocs from Chemistry, materials and mechanics. I took the challenge and made some good progress till now.