We have several open postdoc positions, to be filled immediately.

The first project is focused on thermal management. The project involves the computational and theoretical analysis of graphene/graphite-metal nanocomposites and experimental work carried out by other team members. We are looking for a strong person with background in thermal and mechanical properties of materials, preferrably with background in molecular simulation.

For the other projects we are looking for candidates with expertise in mechanics of materials. Our projects are specifically focused on molecular and coarse-grain modeling of deformation and failure of soft biological materials and include a focus on collagen, spider silk, amyloid materials and other biomaterials.

A previous work suggested a critical condition to form surface creases in elastomers and gels. For elastomers, the critical condition seems to have closed a gap between experimental observations (e.g., by bending a rubber block) and the classical instability analysis by Biot. For gels, however, experiments have observed a wide range of critical swelling ratios, from around 2 to 3.7. Here we present a linear perturbation analysis for swollen hydrogels confined on a rigid substrate, which predicts critical swelling ratios in a similar range.

I finished the grad course on Mechanics of Soft Materials. It took 14 weeks with 2 academic hours per week and it covered the following topics: 1 Tensors 2 Kinematics 3 Balance laws 4 Isotropic elasticity 5 Anisotropic elasticity 6 Viscoelasticity 7 Chemo-mechanical coupling 8 Electro-mechanical coupling.

I attach the class notes and I will be grateful for the remarks, corrections, and criticism from iMechanicians.