Are you enthusiastic about exploring the fascinating interplay between physics and mechanics? Are you interested in real world applications of metamaterials? We are delighted to open a PhD position on the field of fracture metamaterials: the goal is to steer fracture using the internal architecture of metamaterials.
What are you going to do?
Examples of potentially interesting challenges you will meet in this PhD project is to design fracture with extremely long on-demand patterns and that can in turn dissipate energy; fracture that leads to many broken pieces of controlled size. There will be a particular emphasis on edible fracture metamaterials. You will 3d print and mechanically test metamaterials made from chocolate and protein blends and use fracture to control the sensory experience, and collaborate with Unilever and TNO to explore how such edible metamaterials could lead to food innovation. You will also collaborate with the group of Alejandro Aragon (TU Delft), who will focus on the computational design of fracture metamaterials with PhD student starting in parallel. Together with our colleagues from TU Delft, we will devise a holistic approach combining computational design, 3d printing and experiments to design fracture metamaterials. Another application area we will explore with our collaborators and with institutions such as Tata Steel, NLR and TNO is to use fracture metamaterials to enhance energy dissipation.