research

I am happy to share our recent paper published in Cell Reports Physical Science: Inhomogeneous substrate strain-driven long-range cellular patterning

Smart soft materials have gained increasing attention in recent years because of their adaptive behaviors to external multi-physics stimuli, enabling diverse applications across multiple fields. Here, we show programmable wrinkling morphological patterns on liquid crystal network (LCN) bilayers bonded to compliant substrates under thermal load, by tuning the orientation of directors between LCN bilayers. We propose a solid-shell formulation that merges enhanced and natural assumed strain approaches to investigate the pattern formation and morphological transition of LCN bilayers.

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), as a unique class of smart soft materials combining the properties of liquid crystals and hyperelasticity, are capable of rapid, anisotropic, and reversible deformations in response to mechanical, thermal or optical stimuli. Here, we report a hitherto unknown stretching-induced twisting behavior of LCE bilayer strips. Under uniaxial stretching, we reveal that due to the spontaneous mismatch strain arising from interlayer anisotropy, the bilayer strips exhibit notable twisting deformations.

Our latest paper, " Exploring the Effects of Temperature, Transverse Pressure, and Strain Rate on Axial Tensile Behavior of Perfect UHMWPE Crystals Using Molecular Dynamics," is accessible freely for 50 days from this link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1kT-A4rCEkw1es

The key findings can be summarized as follows:

• Elevated temperatures significantly reduce the strength of UHMWPE crystals, with the reduction in strength being more pronounced than that in modulus. 

two PhD positions in our team working on 1) multiscale modeling of brain biomechanics and 2) machine learning-accelerated virtual testing. 

Please forward the information to anybody you know who may be interested. Kindly note the application deadline is Jan 24.

PhD Position 1: Machine learning-accelerated virtual tests towards improved road safety (In collaboration with Autoliv)

Full description & contact: see attached document
University & laboratory: University of Lyon, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes (LTDS), Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'Etat (ENTPE), Géomatériaux et Constructions Durables (GCD).
Location: Lyon, France
Period: 4-year China Scholarship Council scholarship application (only chinese student application)

Link:    https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1kR1E7tcTWs-HG    It provides 50 days' free access to the article. 

Influence of build direction on the fracture mechanism of 3D printed octet lattices,

In this recent EML paper, we show the stark effect of curvature on the performance of metamaterials, both in the static and dynamic domains. Read more at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eml.2024.102285