Learn rheology from textbook author and course director Prof. Chris Macosko (U Minnesota) , along with guest lecturers including Prof. Ewoldt, Prof. Gareth McKinley (MIT), and others:
August 17-21, 2020
https://rheology.cems.umn.edu/
Registration is open!
We are excited about the opportunities that a live online course presents.
Two open postdoc positions. Details and application instructions in these PDFs:
Viscoplastic position
(nonlinear rheology, yield-stress fluids, flow visualization, brittle versus ductile mechanics, inspired by plant-based foods for a sustainable future)
JCESR position
(electrolytes, redox-active materials, Newtonian and non-Newtonian viscosity versus conductivity, inspired by flow batteries for grid scale energy storage)
“Properties matter, not the molecules.” – E.L. Cussler.
Our paper on droplet impact with yield-stress fluids on coated substrates is now online:
Sen, S., A. G. Morales, and R. H. Ewoldt, “Viscoplastic drop impact on thin films,” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 891, A27 (2020). DOI link
We have demonstrated that, as long as the macroscopic rheological flow properties are the same, the microstructural route to those properties itself does not matter. This experimental work demonstrates the generality of a simple dimensionless scaling idea based on forces during drop impact, and its material agnosticity across two vastly different viscoplastic fluids: Laponite clay and Carbopol microgel.
The supplementary video to the paper, showing the various types of impact behaviors observed in the study.
Dr. Chai Saengow will be joining us at Illinois in January 2021 as a Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow.
Read more about Dr. Saengow (Google Scholar here) and the postdoc fellow program via the Beckman Institute and MechSE Department news articles.
Dr. Saengow will collaborate with the research groups of Professor Randy Ewoldt and Professor Amy Wagoner Johnson.
Congratulations to Gaurav Chaudhary!
Gaurav (Ph.D. 2019) was selected to receive the Stanley I Weiss, Outstanding Thesis/Dissertation Award in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois.
Gaurav is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Applied Mathematics at Harvard.
Check out his thesis here: Mechanics of biopolymer networks, stimuli responsive particle suspensions, and their combinations
And several associated papers on the Publications page.
A big vision of our research is to bring design and rheology together.
We’ve just published a collaborative review of this for yield-stress fluids.
Yield-stress fluids are perhaps the most utilized rheologically-complex soft materials in our world today. Designing with this behavior enables applications ranging from the everyday to the extraordinary including drug delivery, food products, batteries, painting, surface coatings, biomaterials, concrete, and other scenarios.
The lead author is lab alum Dr. Arif Nelson, written in collaboration with Ken Schweizer (MatSE, UIUC), Brittany Rauzan (Chemistry, UIUC), Ralph Nuzzo (Chemistry, UIUC), and Jan Vermant (Materials, ETH-Zürich).
From Fig. 3: Materials design encompasses design with a material (performance-to-properties), and design of a material (properties-to-structure).
From Fig. 4: Materials design process illustrated using some of our work in direct-write 3D printing.
“All models are wrong, and some are useful.” -George Box.
Our new collaborative study with colleague Prof. Jon Freund explores how useful the most common non-Newtonian fluid model really is:
Kim, J., P. K. Singh, J. B. Freund, and R. H. Ewoldt, “Uncertainty propagation in simulation predictions of generalized Newtonian fluid flows,” Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, (2019). DOI link
Free access until Oct 8, 2019 at this link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Zb0c1LkSa4V98
Prof. Ewoldt will visit KU Leuven (Belgium) to lecture at The 17th European School on Rheology 2019 from Sept 1-6.
More information here: https://cit.kuleuven.be/smart/rheoschool
Congratulations to Gaurav Chaudhary for winning an Acta Student Award for his first-author publication:
Chaudhary, G., D. S. Fudge, B. Macias-Rodriguez, and R. H. Ewoldt, “Concentration-independent mechanics and structure of hagfish slime,” Acta Biomaterialia, 79, 123–134 (2018). DOI link
See the MechSE news article for more details.
Gaurav will officially be presented the award at the Acta Symposium during the TMS conference in San Diego in February 2020.
Congratulations, Dr. Corman!
