Yang Research Group

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Yang Research Group

Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin

Research

Topic 1: Laser-induced inertial cavitation in soft materials

Our group’s research interests include developing analytical tools and experimental techniques to study viscoelastic materials behavior, dynamic instabilities, and material failure under extreme loading conditions (10^3 ~ 10^8  1/s). Currently, we have novel experimental capabilities for ultra-high-speed imaging bubble dynamics at 10 million frames per second. Our spatial resolution is about 1 μm per pixel. With our developed SpatioTemporally Adaptive Quadtree Mesh Digital Image Correlation (STAQ-DIC) technique, we can track very sensitive motions and deformations on the order of 10 nm.

We are developing and implementing the microcavitation-based rheometry method to characterize viscoelastic material properties of soft gel-like materials at ultra-high strain rates by utilizing laser-induced cavitation. These materials are ubiquitous and include hydrogels and biological tissues. Inertial cavitation in these materials is also very common and closely relevant to many natural phenomena and medical applications, from causing the cracking sound of knuckles to laser and ultrasound therapies. The viscoelastic property of the surrounding material can be identified inversely from studying the resultant bubble dynamics, and knowing these material properties is important in a myriad of biological and engineering applications.

Figure 1. Pulsed-laser-induced inertial cavitation in hydrogels and soft biological materials
Figure 2. Various non-spherical instability patterns appear during high-rate inertial cavitation events

Recent Publications:

  • Elizabeth C. Bremer-Sai, Jin Yang, Alexander McGhee, Christian Franck. Ballistic and Blast-relevant, High-rate Material Properties of Physically and Chemically Crosslinked Hydrogels. Experimental Mechanics, in press, 2024.
  • Jin Yang, Alexander McGhee, Griffin Radtke, Mauro Rodriguez Jr., Christian Franck. Estimating viscoelastic, soft material properties using a modified Rayleigh cavitation bubble collapse time. Physics of Fluids, in press, 2024.
  • Anastasia Tzoumaka, Jin Yang, Selda Buyukozturk, Christian Franck, David Henann. Modeling High Strain-rate Microcavitation in Soft Materials: The Role of Material Behavior in Bubble Dynamics. Soft Matter, 19, 3895–3909, 2023
  • Alexander McGhee*, Jin Yang*, Elizabeth C. Bremer, Harry C. Cramer III, Zhiqin (Echo) Xu, Jon Estrada, David Henann, Christian Franck. Full-field deformation measurements of inertial cavitation in soft materials using Digital Image Correlation. Experimental Mechanics, 63, 63-78, 2022 (*: equal contributions).
  • Jin Yang, Harry Cramer III, Elizabeth Bremer, Selda Buyukozturk, Yue Yin, Christian Franck. Mechanical Characterization of Agarose Hydrogels and their Inherent Dynamic Instabilities at Ballistic to Ultra-high Strain-rates via Inertial Microcavitation. Extreme Mechanics Letters, 101572, 2021.
  • Jin Yang, Anastasia Tzoumaka, David Henann, Kazuya Murakami, Eric Johnsen, Christian Franck. Predicting Complex Non-spherical Instability Shapes of Inertial Cavitation Bubbles in Viscoelastic Soft Matter. Physical Review E, 104, 045108, 2021.
  • Jean-Sebastien Spratt, Mauro Rodriguez, Kevin Schmidmayer, Spencer Bryngelson, Jin Yang, Christian Franck, Tim Colonius. Characterizing viscoelastic materials via ensemble-based data assimilation of bubble collapse observations. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 152, 104455, 2021.
  • Lauren Mancia, Jin Yang, Jean-Sebastien Spratt, Jonathan R. Sukovich, Zhen Xu, Tim Colonius, Christian Franck, Eric Johnsen. Acoustic Cavitation Rheometry. Soft Matter, 17(10), 2931-2941, 2021.
  • Jin Yang, Harry C. Cramer III, Christian Franck. Extracting Non-linear Viscoelastic Material Properties from Violently-collapsing Cavitation Bubbles. Extreme Mechanics Letters, 39:100839, 2020.

 

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Topic 2: Full-field deformation measurement techniques: DIC/DVC/Particle tracking

Our group also aims to leverage state-of-the-art machine learning and data-driven methods to keep improving 2D and 3D full-field deformation measurement (e.g., digital image correlation, digital volume correlation, particle tracking) and other material characterization experimental techniques.

Figure 3. My future plans are to keep improving full-field measurement techniques, and their future impact. (Some subfigures are adapted from images on other websites and published papers. If you claim a subfigure violates the copyright, please contact me to modify it.)
Figure 5. ALDVC resolves full-field 3D volumetric deformations in composites X-ray CT images
Figure 4. SpatioTemporally Adaptive Quadtree Mesh (STAQ) DIC handles large deformations around complex geometries and discontinuities

Recent Publications:

  • Luke Summey, Jing Zhang, Alexander K. Landauer, Jamie Sergay, Jin Yang, Annalise Daul, Jialiang Tao, Jessica Park, Alexander McGhee, Christian Franck. Open-source, In-situ, Intermediate Strain Rate Tensile Impact Device for Soft Materials and Cell Culture Systems. Experimental Mechanics, in press, 2023.
  • Allison N. Ramey-Ward, Yixiao Dong, Jin Yang, Hiroaki Ogasawara, Elizabeth Bremmer, Ogla Brazhkina, Christian Franck, Michael Davis, Khalid Saliata. An Optomechanically Actuated 3D Hydrogel Platform for Cell Culture with High Spatial and Temporal Resolution. ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, in press, 2023
  • Gabriella P. Sugerman, Jin Yang, Manuel K. Rausch. A Speckling Technique for DIC on Ultra-Soft, Highly Hydrated Materials. Experimental Mechanics, 63, 585-590, 2023
  • Jin Yang, Vito Rubino, Zhan Ma, Jialiang Tao, Yue Yin, Alexander McGhee, Wenxiao Pan, Christian Franck. Spatiotemporally Adaptive Quadtree mesh (STAQ) Digital Image Correlation for resolving large deformations around complex geometries and discontinuities. Experimental Mechanics, 62, 1191-1215, 2022.
  • Jin Yang, Yue Yin, Alexander K. Landauer, Selda Buyukozturk, Jing Zhang, Luke Summey, Alexander McGhee, Matt K. Fu, John O. Dabiri, Christian Franck. SerialTrack: ScalE and Rotation Invariant Augmented Lagrangian Particle Tracking. SoftwareX, 19, 101204, 2022.
  • Philip L. Reu, Benoît Blaysat, Edward Andò, Kaushik Bhattacharya, Cyrille Couture, Vincent Couty, Debasis Deb, SS Fayad, MA Iadicola, Stéphanie Jaminion, Markus Klein, AK Landauer, Pascal Lava, Mengying Liu, LK Luan, SN Olufsen, Julien Réthoré, Emmanuel Roubin, DT Seidl, Thorsten Siebert, Olga Stamati, Evelyne Toussaint, Daniel Turner, CSR Vemulapati, Thorsten Weikert, Jean-François Witz, Oliver Witzel, Jin Yang. DIC Challenge 2.0: Developing images and guidelines for evaluating accuracy and resolution of 2D analyses – Focus on the metrological efficiency indicator. Experimental Mechanics, 62, 639-654, 2022
  • Jin Yang*, Jialiang Tao*, Christian Franck. Smart digital image correlation pattern design via 3D printing technique. Experimental Mechanics, 61, 1181-1191, 2021 (*: equal contributions).
  • Jin Yang, Kaushik Bhattacharya. Fast adaptive augmented Lagrangian Digital Image Correlation. Experimental Mechanics, 61(4), 719-735, 2021.
  • Ali Necdet Özdür, Buğra Üçel, Jin Yang, and Cahit Can Aydiner. Residual Intensity as a Morphological Identifier of Twinning Fields in Microscopic Image Correlation. Experimental Mechanics, 61, 499-514, 2020.
  • Lauren Hazlett, Alexander K. Landauer, Mohak Patel, Hadley A. Witt, Jin Yang, Jonathan S. Reichner, and Christian Franck. Epifluorescence-based three-dimensional traction force microscopy. Scientific Reports, 10:16599, 2020.
  • Jin Yang, Lauren Hazlett, Alexander K. Landauer, Christian Franck. Augmented Lagrangian Digital Volume Correlation (ALDVC). Experimental Mechanics, 60, 1205-1223, 2020.
  • Jin Yang, Kaushik Bhattacharya. Combining image compression with Digital Image Correlation. Experimental Mechanics, 59, 629-642, 2019.
  • Jin Yang, Kaushik Bhattacharya. Augmented Lagrangian Digital Image Correlation. Experimental Mechanics, 59, 187-205, 2019.