Statement of Research Interest

My main field of research interest is in materials design, microstructure-properties relationship of materials and computational mechanics. My research efforts mainly focus on these areas:

Materials By Design:

A major goal for materials design is the selection and optimization of microstructures for a specified set of properties and mechanical constraints. Microstructure Sensitive Design (MSD) was developed to bridge the microstructure, properties and processing steps. In MSD, all possible microstructure is represented as a material hull in a Fourier space composed by texture coefficients. Crystal orientation distribution (texture) evolution in the material hull during processing is visualized as processing path. To simulate texture evolution of polycrystalline materials is an essential element in MSD. With Dr. Garmestani, a cofounder of MSD, I proposed a new methodology to simulate the texture evolution based on a conservation principle in orientation space. Processing path function and streamline of texture evolution proposed in this methodology will help the materials design users to find out an optimized processing method to achieve desired microstructure. Another aspect of my research in this area is to use statistical continuum mechanics to predict the microstructure evolution and mechanical response of polycrystalline materials including composite. A grant application was submitted to Navy to apply MSD in optimizing materials design of fuel tank.

Microstructure-properties evolution during thermomechanical processing and high magnetic field annealing:

Microstructure evolution of polymers (polyethylene and polypropylene) and metals (titanium and aluminum) during mechanical processing were studied. Constrained hybrid model and composite model utilizing the principles of crystal plasticity are applied in polymers and metals to simulate the microstructure evolution and mechanical response. Texture evolution and properties anisotropy of carbon nanotube composite and media record materials (FePd and Nd₂Fe₁₄B) after ultra high magnetic field annealing were studied. The anisotropy observed in magnetic annealing could be used as guidance in the further materials design to improve mechanical and electromagnetic properties. Further research effort will be focused on quantitatively modeling the properties with the microstructure represented by points in materials hull.

Improving mechanical properties of Tissue Engineered Materials:

Scaffold acts as architecture in tissue engineered substitute to seed and culture the cells, the ideal scaffold would have the identical mechanical behavior of the tissue substituted. Our research focus on modeling mechanical response of semicrystalline matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporated scaffold (PLLA, PGA). It is our further research work to use MSD to guide improvement of mechanical properties (and optical properties in cornea substitute) of tissue engineered materials by processing. A funding application was submitted to NIH.

Back