Seminar Series: Douglas Holmes
- Starts: 11:00 am on Friday, September 13, 2024
- Ends: 12:00 pm on Friday, September 13, 2024
Speaker: Douglas Holmes
Title: Engineering with Instability
Abstract: Structural mechanics plays a crucial role in soft matter physics, mechanobiology, metamaterials, pattern formation, active matter, and soft robotics. What unites these seemingly disparate topics is the natural balance that emerges between elasticity, geometry, and stability. This seminar will serve as a high-level overview of our work on several problems concerning the stability of structures. Doug will cover three topics: (1) shape-shifting shells; (2) mechanical metamaterials; and (3) elastogranular mechanics. Doug will begin by briefly discussing his lab’s work on (1) shape-shifting shells, which culminated in the development of a generalized, stimuli-responsive shell theory. This model is meant to describe how shells deform in response to heating, swelling, and growth, and it captures the morphogenesis of the optic cup, the snapping of the Venus flytrap, leaf growth, and the buckling of electrically active polymer plates. He will then discuss how (2) cutting thin sheets and shells, a process inspired by the art of kirigami, enables the design of functional mechanical metamaterials. They create linear actuators, artificial muscles, soft robotic grippers, and demonstrate basic mechanical logic and mechanical computation by systematically cutting and stretching thin sheets. (3) Finally, he will introduce our work on the interactions between elastic and granular matter, which we refer to as elastogranular mechanics. Such interactions occur across all lengths, from morphogenesis, to root growth, to stabilizing soil against erosion. We show how combining rocks and string in the absence of any adhesive we can create large, load bearing structures like columns, beams, and arches. Behind all of these seemingly disparate topics is the unifying idea of engineering with instability: leveraging phase changes, state changes, and structural stability to create functional structures.
About the Speaker: Douglas Holmes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. He received degrees in Chemistry from the University of New Hampshire (B.S. 2004), Polymer Science & Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (M.S. 2005, Ph.D. 2009), and was a postdoctoral researcher in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. Prior to joining Boston University, he was an Assistant Professor of Engineering Science & Mechanics at Virginia Tech. His research group specializes in the mechanics of slender structures, with a focus on understanding and controlling how objects change shape. His work has been recognized by the NSF CAREER Award, the ASEE Ferdinand P. Beer and E. Russell Johnston Jr. Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award, and the Theo de Winter Distinguished Faculty Fellowship.
- Location:
- ENG 245 110 Cummington Mall