Award
2018 Young Investigator Award Winner—Award from Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Department
Mechanical Engineering
What is the impact of your research?
Discovering stronger materials is one of the long standing problems in the history of engineering. Having stronger materials will impact the world from different angles. For example, imagine that we have a material with exceptionally high mechanical properties. Then we will be able to reduce the weight of many structures, without changing the performance, by using these new materials. Reducing even a slight weight in a plane for example, can have significant effects on energy consumption. Having stronger materials can also reduce many of the fatal failures, such as structural collapses, which happen due to the materials’ weaknesses.
In this project, we use graphene to make metals stronger by incorporating layers of graphene in metal to drastically increase the composites’ overall strength. The graphene particles help prevent metal failure by acting as blocks and preventing the organized, stacked layers of atoms from sliding and dislocating. Based on our early research, we target introducing very high-strength materials, which will create a wide variety of opportunities for increasing efficiencies through the use of stronger, lighter metals.
What do you like most about the field of mechanical engineering?
Mechanical engineering, and particularly the mechanics of materials, is uniquely located at the interface between “pure” and “applied” sciences. While it is deeply rooted in pure sciences such mathematics, physics, and chemistry, it has a significant direct impact in many applications that affect many aspects of our daily life.
What path did you take to get to this point in your career and research?
I have been working on metals, particularly on alloys with solid-solid phase transformation during my Ph.D. studies. In my postdoc, I started working on the very difficult research topic of studying carbon-based materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes. When I started my career as an assistant professor at Virginia Tech, the idea of combining metals and graphene to make a new composite material with exceptional mechanical properties came to my mind. With the help of all my group members, and after almost four years, the idea is now well developed, and with the help of this award we hope to get closer to introducing a new class of materials in the following years.
When you are not researching, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
I enjoy spending time with my family, hiking, watching movies, and listening to music.