Seminar Schedule – Spring 2017

Thursday, February 23, 2017
Time: 3:30-5:00 PM
Place: WRW 102

Active Deformation and Instabilities in Soft Materials

Shengqiang Cai, University of California, San Diego

In recent years, soft materials have been extensively explored in a myriad of engineering applications including stretchable/wearable devices and soft robotics. In the talk, I will present some of our recent works on the mechanics of soft active materials. My presentation can be divided into two parts. In the first part, I will show thermally or optically induced large active deformation in liquid crystal elastomer, a newly emerging soft material with many intriguing mechanical properties. I will be focused on discussing the performance of liquid crystal elastomer as artificial muscle material. Soft active devices and structures fabricated from liquid crystal elastomers will also be demonstrated in my talk. In the second part of the talk, I will present some of our recent progresses on the mechanical instabilities in soft materials when subjected to multiple fields. Drying-induced cavitation in hydrogel and snap-through instability of dielectric elastomer balloons will serve as two examples.

For further information, please contact Dr. Stelios Kyriakides at skk@utexas.edu or (512) 471-4167.