Mechanics and physics of soft materials

Co-Chairs:

Shengqiang Cai, University of California San Diego

Shawn Chester, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Noy Cohen, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

Stephan Rudykh, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Meredith Silberstein, Cornell University

Other Co-Organizers:

J. El-Awady, Johns Hopkins University

Yuhang Hu, Georgia Institute of Technology

Lihua Jin, University of California Los Angeles

Sung Hoon Kang, Johns Hopkins University

Marisol Koslowski, Purdue University

Christian Linder, Stanford University

Oscar Lopez-Pamies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Robert M. McMeeking, University of California Santa Barbara

Qiming Wang, University of Southern California

Xuanhe Zhao, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Summary:

Soft materials is an increasingly active field of research driving science and technology into new exciting directions. Large deformations coupled with various multiphysics phenomena and instabilities at different length scales open an immensely rich research arena. This offers unique opportunities to develop multifunctional materials and devices with novel properties, through the targeted design of material composition and microstructural layout. Moreover, soft materials represent essential components in biological tissues, a topic of extreme interest for bio-medical applications.

This mini-symposium will address recent experimental, computational, theoretical and manufacturing advances in this direction. Topics of particular interest include:

  • Electroactive and magnetoactive elastomers (EAP, DE, MRE, MAE, IPMC)
  • Hydrogels and other soft wet materials
  • Liquid crystal elastomers
  • Shape-memory and light-sensitive polymers
  • Instabilities in soft materials
  • Fracture, and adhesion in soft materials
  • Soft biological and bio-inspired materials
  • Multiphysics phenomena in soft materials
  • Wave propagation and dynamics of soft materials
  • 3D/4D printing and fabrication of soft materials
  • Soft Robotics or Machines
  • Mechanical Metamaterials