Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering researchers are using HPC resources to explore material behavior at microscale and nanoscale levels, to simulate the dynamics of blood flow in the body, and to design next-generation membranes for water purification.  Many graduate students, postdocs, and faculty in Mechanical Engineering use the HPC resources on a daily basis, and these facilities are critical to their research projects.  The  Mulitscale Materials Modeling Lab led by Dr. Arun Nair at the University of Arkansas use HPC to research the mechanics of materials including nanocomposites, polymers, bioinspired materials, and biomechanics at multiple length scales.  For more on their research and for a brief publications list, please visit the lab's website.

Figure 1:  A PS-b-PMMA [poly (styrene-block-methyl methacrylate)] di-block co-polymer thin film that has been sandwiched between two neutral substrates. During bulk phase-separation, the poly- mer will form spheres of PS (red color in image) surrounded by PDMS (blue), however, when applied in a thin film, the spheres attach to the substrate forming a regular pattern of hemispheres.