Events Calendar

Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

Speaker: Dr. Shengqiang Cai, University of California, San Diego

Talk Title: Soft Materials: from fundamental mechanics to applications

Abstract: In recent years, soft materials have been extensively explored in a myriad of engineering applications including wearable devices and soft robotics. In the talk, I will discuss some of our recent work on soft materials. The presentation will mainly contain two parts. In the first part, I will talk about recent progress made in our group on a newly emerging polymer: liquid crystal elastomer (LCE). I will show some examples of the applications of liquid crystal elastomer as artificial muscle in the design of soft robots. I will also discuss several very intriguing phenomena associated with the large deformation and soft elasticity of liquid crystal elastomers. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss the challenges of studying the mechanics of soft materials. Electromechanical instabilities of dielectric elastomer balloons and nonlinear instability of an everted tube will serve as two examples.




Biography: Professor Shengqiang Cai is currently an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering program at the University of California, San Diego. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 2011. After graduating from Harvard, he spent one year as postdoc at MIT. His research is mainly focused on mechanics of materials, especially soft materials and active materials. He received NSF CAREER award in 2016.


Host: Dr. Qiming Wang

Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 102

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes