Department of Mechanical Engineering
Date off
30-04-2010
Reference number
V35.1030
The Department of
Mechanical Engineering considers as the core of its activities design, realization and analysis of new products, processes and materials. Besides the basis of (solid and fluid) mechanics, materials, control and thermodynamics, parts of mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing science are important supporting tools. The field is explored by a combination of modeling using fundamental concepts and applied engineering and technology. Automotive Engineering Science and Micro- & Nano-Scale Engineering are important departmental themes. The Mechanical Engineering Department comprises about 1000 students and 250 staff members.
The research of the
Polymer Technology group is aimed at bridging the gap between science and technology in the area of polymer processing and design, through the use of experimental and computational tools in the modelling of the full thermo-mechanical history of material (elements) during their formation, processing and final design, to quantitatively predict properties of processed objects.
This PhD position is part of the Interdisciplinary program “Biomimetic Materials” at TU Eindhoven. The project will involve 3 PhD students that will be appointed at 3 different departments – one in Chemistry, one in Theoretical Physics, one in Mechanical Engineering (this position).
Background
Most soft tissues in Nature owe their structural integrity, and indeed their mechanical properties in general, to proteinaceous polymers arranged into network architectures that exhibit various degrees of ordering. Examples abound: Inside cells, three distinct types of protein polymers (actin, microtubules and intermediate filaments) self-assemble and aggregate into the cytoskeleton: a crosslinked polymer network that not only provides the cell with its mechanical strength and durability, but is also constantly and actively reorganized to effect motility. The non-cellular soft tissues, known collectively as the extracellular matrix (or ECM, for short), likewise are composed of such crosslinked networks containing mainly collagen, a tightly regulated hierarchical assembly of protein filaments.
For some time now, such biological polymer networks have been known to exhibit some highly unusual mechanical properties. Most striking among these is their propensity to strain stiffen dramatically, and in a way that is unlike any synthetic structure. In many cases, this strain stiffening serves very clear physiological and functional purposes. A particularly striking example of this is the case of blood vessels, whose strain stiffening quite literally keeps the vessel wall tissue from rupturing in response the considerable stresses generated by a passing blood pulse. Historically, this nonlinear elastic behavior in biological materials was attributed to dedicated regulatory/sensory mechanisms - after all, these materials appear to sense external stimuli, and display a measured functional response. Recently, however, strain stiffening was reinterpreted as the consequence of purely physical attributes of biopolymer materials and therefore, importantly, this behavior is not due to an actively regulated process. The cause of stiffening is now thought to be interplay of the intrinsically nonlinear nature of the constituent polymeric filaments, the architecture into which these are assembled and the internal propagation of strain. One particular consequence of this is a remarkable degree of universality in the mechanical response of these materials. Indeed, a broad range of biopolymer materials stiffen in completely analogous manner.
As this physiologically relevant behavior is physical in origin, this new understanding holds wonderful promise for synthetics. If one is able to control the physical parameters that characterize the polymeric material – parameters such as the stiffness of the polymers, the strength of the crosslinkers and the connectivity of the network – it is possible to effectively tune the material’s mechanical properties. In particular, these properties can be designed such that they closely mimic the nonlinear elastic properties of real biological materials.
A coherent, interdisciplinary research program has been initiated at the TU/e to develop and characterize biocompatible synthetic materials that are mechanically indistinguishable from biological materials; Through the combined approach of chemical synthesis and self-assembly, computational modeling and mechanical characterization, these new materials will serve as a basis for a fundamental physical understanding of the remarkable mechanical behavior of biological materials.
Project description
This PhD thesis will be carried out in the Department of Mechanical Engineering / Materials Technology under the guidance of dr. Hans Wyss and dr. Gerrit Peters; the student will also be part of the new interdisciplinary Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS) at TU Eindhoven. The work will be done in close collaboration with the other two PhD students involved in the research project.
Tasks
You will experimentally characterize novel biomimetic materials using soft matter characterization techniques such as static and dynamic light scattering, rheology, various kinds of microscopy, rheology, as well as microrheology and mulitparticle tracking techniques. We will also develop new approaches to study and understand the behavior of these materials. The goal is to characterize the mechanical behavior and the dynamics at a wide range of length scales and use this information to understand the remarkable macroscopic mechanical response of these materials. You can get more information on this position online at:
http://www.mate.tue.nl/~wyss.
Requirements
We’re looking for talented, enthusiastic candidates to fill the three PhD positions associated to this highly interdisciplinary effort – a short summary for the specific research objectives for each position is provided below.
Due to the interdisciplinary nature to the project we will consider candidates from a wide range of backgrounds such as experimental physics, materials science, mechanical engineering, or chemical engineering. You should have experience in experimental materials characterization techniques such as rheology or light scattering and possess a strong interest in working in a interdisciplinary team as well as a drive to explore and interest in fundamental science.
Appointment and salary
We offer:
علاقه مندی ها (Bookmarks)