This Project Grant award of $251,445 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports fundamental research by the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) to develop innovative methods for understanding fracture propagation in soft viscoelastic materials across a wide range of loading conditions and temperatures. The research aims to create integrated experimental and computational techniques to analyze nonlinear, rate- and temperature-dependent fracture...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $533,432 awarded on March 1, 2023 will fund research, education, and outreach activities at Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station through February 28, 2028. Under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), this award will support the development of an all-scale continuum modeling framework to predict plastic deformation and failure across material scales. The awardee will conduct research on magnesium-aluminum micropillars, nanoporous...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award of $612,379 supports research on the mechanics of soft, multiphase architected materials. The award recipient, Washington State University, will investigate the effects of solid-liquid phase interactions and geometric arrangement on the mechanical properties of these materials, which have potential applications in biomedical, healthcare, and soft robotics. The research aims to develop a nonlinear...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $369,424 to Michigan State University to conduct fundamental research on end-linked polymer networks. The research aims to investigate the role of topological defects in regulating the strain-induced crystallization and mechanical properties of these materials, including their stress-strain behavior, fracture, and fatigue. The project will combine experimental and modeling approaches across...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award of $375,000 to the University of Texas at Austin will develop a fundamental understanding of the multi-functional response of a new class of engineered materials: three-dimensional woven architected nano-composites. The research will leverage additive manufacturing techniques to fabricate highly deformable woven architected materials that provide electrical responses correlated to their level of...
The University of Texas at Austin received a $398,286 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation to support research related to stimuli-responsive soft materials. The grant was awarded on September 1, 2021 under the Engineering (CFDA 47.041) program with a completion date of January 31, 2023. Through this funding, the University will deliver research developing soft materials that can change properties in response to external stimuli, advancing innovations at the intersection of...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a 4-year, $510,000 Project Grant under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to conduct research on crack propagation in nonlinearly viscoelastic materials, using hydrogels as a model system. The objectives are to identify criteria governing crack growth and path selection in viscoelastic solids through a combined numerical and experimental study of crack propagation under mixed-mode planar...
The University of Texas at Austin was awarded a $800,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation. The grant falls under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) and will support research titled "Computationally Driven Design of Synthetic Tissue-Like Multifunctional Materials" from September 2021 through August 2025. Specifically, the four-year grant will fund the development of computational models and methods to...
The University of Texas at Austin received a $285,681 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation to support research titled "COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: INFERRING THE IN SITU MICRO-MECHANICS OF EMBEDDED FIBER NETWORKS BY LEVERAGING LIMITED IMAGING DATA." The three-year award, issued on January 1, 2022 under the NSF Engineering (CFDA 47.041) program, will fund research aimed at improving understanding of the...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award supports fundamental research into the puncture mechanics of soft solids, such as hydrogels and biological tissues. The $546,068 award to Georgia Tech Research Corporation, a non-profit research organization and state institution of higher education, will fund a 3-year study to provide a quantitative understanding of the fracture and penetration properties of ultra-soft materials. The research aims to develop...