Soft Dynamics: from understanding Nature to design new mechanical systems
Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science Seminar
Eleonora Tubaldi
Assistant Professor
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
University of Arizona
Soft Dynamics: from understanding Nature to design new mechanical systems
How do soft materials and tissue couple with fluids? Many of the soft systems that Nature designs interact with fluids; from bacteria locomotion to cardiovascular vessels, passing by cell deformation. In these systems, soft structures are deformed by the surrounding fluid while they simultaneously act on the fluid with their flexible boundaries. Nature, through a long evolutionary history, exploits fluid-soft structure interaction (FSSI) for designing highly efficient biological systems. Investigating the nonlinear FSSI intrinsic complexities and mechanisms will allow us to solve still puzzling questions on these physical phenomena. These new revealing insights into Nature strategies will also improve our design and modeling of biomechanical and biologically-inspired systems. In the first part of the talk, we will highlight how the nonlinear FSSI of soft cardiovascular vessels and prostheses is crucial in understanding their physiological behavior. In this regard, the design of the next generation aortic prosthesis might be based on its ability to mimic the nonlinear dynamics and the FSSI of the native aorta conveying pulsatile blood flow.
Can nonlinear dynamics be also harnessed to design new mechanical systems? In the second part of the talk, we will discuss how the nonlinear dynamics of buckled elastic beams can be used for engineering nonlinear mechanical metamaterials. By carefully assembling shallow arches in 2D arrangements, we can engineer fully snapping unit cells, which snap between two equally stable energy configurations. These unit cells can tile a 2D space which will have both bistability and snapping-through behavior. This would open new promising paths because controlling “snapping-waves” can be exploited in mechanical signal transmissions, mechanical diodes, targeted energy transmission and locally energy storage, switcher designs and logic gates.
Bio sketch
Dr. Tubaldi joined the University of Arizona in January 2018 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and obtained, in the same university, a second appointment in the Department of Applied Mathematics GIDP in May 2018. She received her Ph.D. degree in July 2017 in Mechanical Engineering at McGill University, her M.S. Double Degree Diploma at Politecnico di Milano and École Polytechnique de Montréal in Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering (2013), and her B.S. at Politecnico di Milano in Aerospace Engineering (2010).
Her research interests sit at the interface of fluid-structure interaction, soft materials science, and nonlinear dynamics for applications in biomechanics, prosthetic design, and nonlinear mechanical metamaterial. She is author of several peer-reviewed international journal papers. She serves as Associated Editor for Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines: An International Journal. She is reviewer of J. of Fluids and Structures, Int. J. of Nonlinear Mechanics, AIAA Journal, and Computers in Biology and Medicine. She is member of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Dynamics & Control System & Structures (DCSS) Technical Committee. She has been awarded national scholarship Doctoral Research Quebec Merit Scholarship for Foreign Students (PBEEE) and Mechanical Engineering Doctoral Award (MEDA) at McGill University.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
2:30 – 3:30 pm
Location – Mason 107
Host: Professor Udo Schwarz
Refreshments served at 2:15 pm