CAREER: Novel Homogenization Approaches to Study the Electromechanical Behavior and Stability of Soft Electrostrictive Composites

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The objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award is the investigation of the electromechanical behavior and stability of soft electrostrictive composites (SECs), directly in terms of their microscopic properties and microstructures. SECs are a new class of electroactive materials with the unique capability to greatly and reversibly deform (more than 100%) in response to low-intensity mechanical and electrical stimuli. The focus will be on developing iterative homogenization techniques for random, nonlinear elastic, dielectric composites subjected to finite deformations and finite electric fields. In spite of accounting for fine microscopic details, these techniques will provide a tractable analytical framework - via various types of Hamilton-Jacobi equations - to describe, explain, and predict the strongly coupled and nonlinear response of SECs, and the onset of their mechanical/electrical failure. At the technological level, this work will provide a quantitative basis to design, from the bottom up, SEC products and devices that will enable many high-end applications in significant fields such as medicine and energy, with the potential to considerably improve the quality of our lives. The current lack of such a basis has thus far hampered the actual use of these remarkable materials, for instance, in artificial muscles, energy harvesters, and drug delivery systems, which have otherwise been identified as promising applications. This project will include international collaborations with institutions in Argentina and France. It will provide training for graduate and undergraduate students, and will engage high school students in several activities promoting interest in science and engineering prior to higher education.