This five-year $565,337 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation, under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), will support fundamental research and education on electro-mechanical behaviors of soft conductive composites embedded with liquid metal fiber networks. The principal investigator will employ an integrated experimental-theoretical-computational approach to characterize network geometry evolution under extreme deformation and establish a multiphysics constitutive modeling framework considering material anisotropy and non-affinity. Various experimental techniques involving micro- and nano-computed tomography imaging and synchronized electro-mechanical testing will verify the researched constitutive models and computational micromechanics models. The award will also integrate research and education, focusing on student training, industry engagement, and K-12 and undergraduate outreach to educate more engineers in liquid metal materials research and design. The research findings, simulation tools, and experimental methodology developed under this award will be broadly applicable to soft conductive composites.
Generated 1/6/24, 9:37 PM