Designing polymer additives to control breakup of jets and impacting drops. Current agricultural spraying of pesticides is inefficient, causing serious environmental contamination. The project aims to design polymeric additives to control the fluid dynamics of spraying so that drops reach, and then adhere to their target leaf surfaces.
Hydraulic erosion of granular structures: experiments and computational simulations. Erosion due to hydraulic forces causes vast damage to infrastructure and buildings in Australia and overseas. The project aims to improve the predictability and controllability of flooding related disasters caused by erosion. The project involves experiments as well as cutting edge computer simulations.
Wet Particulate Materials - Flow or Fracture? Most advanced materials are produced from starting materials in the form of fine particles. Powders, especially in ceramic engineering, are first processed wet into near-final shape. Improved understanding of the fracture of particle networks is critical in order to process nano-sized advanced ceramic materials for use in solar energy harvesting and extreme heat engine applications as well as minimising drying cracks in paints and coatings. The resea ....Wet Particulate Materials - Flow or Fracture? Most advanced materials are produced from starting materials in the form of fine particles. Powders, especially in ceramic engineering, are first processed wet into near-final shape. Improved understanding of the fracture of particle networks is critical in order to process nano-sized advanced ceramic materials for use in solar energy harvesting and extreme heat engine applications as well as minimising drying cracks in paints and coatings. The research aims to identify the fundamental link between particle network strength and structure and the fracture of wet powder bodies. The microscopic mechanisms that control the behaviour will be investigated with a particular focus on toughening mechanisms including the influence of plasticity.Read moreRead less
Encoding Interactions and Printability into Hairy Colloidal Biomaterials. Printing mixtures of live cells and biomaterials (or 'BioInks') to make bespoke engineered tissues has the potential to enable personalised platforms for therapeutic discovery and organ replacement. Using a novel high throughput approach to materials synthesis, BioInk design and process optimisation, this project aims to discover new biomaterials and printing nozzles to help realise this potential. It will produce new insi ....Encoding Interactions and Printability into Hairy Colloidal Biomaterials. Printing mixtures of live cells and biomaterials (or 'BioInks') to make bespoke engineered tissues has the potential to enable personalised platforms for therapeutic discovery and organ replacement. Using a novel high throughput approach to materials synthesis, BioInk design and process optimisation, this project aims to discover new biomaterials and printing nozzles to help realise this potential. It will produce new insights in colloid science, cell-laden biomaterials design, and BioInk processing. Structure-property-function guides for colloid-based BioInks and quality-assured bioprinting as outcomes represent significant benefits for researchers and industries alike engaged in biofabrication, cell therapy and biotherapeutics.Read moreRead less
Programming anisotropy into responsive soft materials. The project aims to generate viscoelastic soft materials with programmable anisotropy using aqueous suspensions of colloidal rods that have tunable surface coatings. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the rheology and structural characteristics of this unique class of materials. A key innovation is the use of charge-directed polymer self-assembly to control colloidal interactions, suspension rheology and phase behaviour. The in ....Programming anisotropy into responsive soft materials. The project aims to generate viscoelastic soft materials with programmable anisotropy using aqueous suspensions of colloidal rods that have tunable surface coatings. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the rheology and structural characteristics of this unique class of materials. A key innovation is the use of charge-directed polymer self-assembly to control colloidal interactions, suspension rheology and phase behaviour. The intended outcome is spatial control over the orientation of nanostructures, potentially mimicking the structural hierarchy found in nature. This should provide significant benefits to the creation of viscoelastic materials with complex rheology as well as structural, mechanical and optical heterogeneity.Read moreRead less
Promoting new reaction pathways with nonequilibrium flow. This project aims to develop a fundamental molecular level understanding of flow-induced physical and chemical reactions in liquids. Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations will be used to gain insight into the mechanisms that promote reactions under shear, and how these are related to molecular structure and fluid composition. New relationships for determination of rate constants of reactions in nonequilibrium systems will also be ....Promoting new reaction pathways with nonequilibrium flow. This project aims to develop a fundamental molecular level understanding of flow-induced physical and chemical reactions in liquids. Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations will be used to gain insight into the mechanisms that promote reactions under shear, and how these are related to molecular structure and fluid composition. New relationships for determination of rate constants of reactions in nonequilibrium systems will also be developed and tested. It is expected that this knowledge will enhance the capacity to control and promote reactions. This is significant for advancement of many technologies, from development of new synthetic pathways and products, to design of lubricants that can withstand extreme strain rates.Read moreRead less
Engineering biomimetic lubrication with mucin. Engineering coatings for water to be an effective lubricant is a significant challenge. The project seeks to emulate how nature builds highly lubricating water-rich polymer films on biological surfaces. This is intended to be achieved by directing the self-assembly of mucin macromolecules onto polymer brushes attached to a substrate, and then cross-linking the constituents to obtain a hydrated gel-like lubricating coating. This research is expected ....Engineering biomimetic lubrication with mucin. Engineering coatings for water to be an effective lubricant is a significant challenge. The project seeks to emulate how nature builds highly lubricating water-rich polymer films on biological surfaces. This is intended to be achieved by directing the self-assembly of mucin macromolecules onto polymer brushes attached to a substrate, and then cross-linking the constituents to obtain a hydrated gel-like lubricating coating. This research is expected to provide new insights on the mechanisms by which mucin-rich fluids lubricate and protect biosurfaces, which is important to human health, nutrition and well-being. It may also lead to new discoveries for engineering surface coatings for biomaterials and nanomaterials.Read moreRead less
Optical tweezers as a micro-rheological probe of soft surfaces. Biomembranes are more than soft containers - their dynamic flexibility plays an important role in cell function, but measurements of mechanical properties of soft surfaces are non-existent. This project develops and applies a new optical tweezers method to measure the flexibility of membranes and its effects upon the friction of nearby particles.
Linking topology and rheology for designing supramolecular polymer networks. This project aims to develop a foundation for understanding how microscopic topology and intermolecular interactions control the flow behaviour of supramolecular polymer networks. Brownian dynamics algorithms will be developed to unravel the complex dynamics of the network and calibrated by comparison with carefully designed experiments. The expected outcome of the project is a quantitative framework for connecting the ....Linking topology and rheology for designing supramolecular polymer networks. This project aims to develop a foundation for understanding how microscopic topology and intermolecular interactions control the flow behaviour of supramolecular polymer networks. Brownian dynamics algorithms will be developed to unravel the complex dynamics of the network and calibrated by comparison with carefully designed experiments. The expected outcome of the project is a quantitative framework for connecting the molecular structure and energy landscape with resulting macroscopic properties. This project should yield significant benefit in the rational design of supramolecular systems in which the thermorheological properties can be tuned over a wide range of force/time scales with applications spanning from enhanced oil recovery to injectable hydrogels.Read moreRead less
It’s a fine line: analytical and experimental optimisation of drawing metal-in-dielectric nanowire composites to manufacture engineered metamaterials. Exploitation of ‘smart materials’ is a major opportunity for 21st century Australian manufacturing if cost effective bulk production is available. Metamaterials are ideal building blocks for such new-age materials, being dielectric/metal composites structured on sub-wavelength dimensions, offering diverse properties unavailable in natural material ....It’s a fine line: analytical and experimental optimisation of drawing metal-in-dielectric nanowire composites to manufacture engineered metamaterials. Exploitation of ‘smart materials’ is a major opportunity for 21st century Australian manufacturing if cost effective bulk production is available. Metamaterials are ideal building blocks for such new-age materials, being dielectric/metal composites structured on sub-wavelength dimensions, offering diverse properties unavailable in natural materials. Fibre drawing is a proven mass-production technology for translating the structure of a (macroscale) preform to microscale and has recently been applied it to fabricate microscale metamaterials. By overcoming fundamental instabilities, this project will transform the technique to manufacture nanoscale structured composites and demonstrate practical metamaterial-based optical devices with unique properties.Read moreRead less