Our new paper “Open Source, In‑Situ, Intermediate Strain‑Rate Tensile Impact Device for Soft Materials and Cell Culture Systems” has been accepted by Experimental Mechanics. Intermediate-strain-rate mechanical testing of soft and biological materials is important when designing, measuring, predicting, or manipulating an object or system’s response to common impact scenarios. In this work, we developed Open source micro-mechanical test instruments that provide high spatial and temporal resolution volumetric strain field measurements, non-destructive testing and gripping of soft materials with low elastic moduli, programmable strain rates spanning from 10^−6 (1/s) to 10^2 (1/s), and biocompatibility for living cell cultures and tissues in one instrument. It is an impressive team work lead by research scientists Luke Summey and Dr. Jing Zhang and many former lab mates of Dr. Yang at the UWisc-Madison Franck Lab including Dr. Alexander K. Landauer, Jamie Sergay, Dr. Jin Yang, Annalise Daul, Dr. Jialiang Tao, Jessica Park, Dr. Alexander McGhee, and Dr. Christian Franck. Congratulations to see this work has been accepted by Experimental Mechanics!
