Seminars

PMMH’s weekly seminar is held every Friday at 11 am (map)

Contact :
Stéphane Perrard
Etienne Reyssat
Virgile Thiévenaz
responsables-seminaires (arobase) pmmh.espci.fr

PMMH
BARRE CASSAN
BAT A 1ER ETAGE CASE 18
7 QUAI SAINT BERNARD
75005 PARIS
France

Tel : (33) 1 40 79 45 22


Zhigang Suo (Harvard University)

Vendredi 24 mai 2013 de 11h00 à 12h00 - Bureau d'Etudes

Soft active materials and soft machines

Machines in engineering use mostly hard materials, while machines in nature are often soft. This difference has been an inspiration for the nascent field of soft machines. What does softness impart to the life of animals and plants ? Softness enables large deformation, which in turn provides vital functions. Familiar examples include the beating of the heart, the sound shaped by the vocal folds, and the accommodation of the eye. In soft machines, deformation of soft materials is used to provide functions such as regulating flow in microfluidics, modulating light in adaptive optics, and interfacing tissues with stretchable electronics. Soft materials can deform in response to stimuli other than mechanical forces. Dielectric elastomers deform under voltage. Hydrogels swell in response to changes in humidity, pH, temperature, and concentration of salt. How do mechanics and chemistry work together to generate large deformation ? How do molecular processes and geometric layouts affect functions of devices ? How efficiently can materials convert energy from one form to another ? These questions are stimulating new and exciting developments. This lecture highlights theory and experiments of soft materials that enable the creation of soft machines.

Top







Seminars  (4)

  • Séminaire PMMH - Francesca Borghi Università degli Studi di Milano
    Vendredi 20 juin de 11h00 à 12h00 - Salle réunion PMMH 1
    REPROGRAMMABLE HARDWARE FOR DATA PROCESSING AT THE EDGE : A NEW COMPUTING PARADIGM BASED ON NEUROMORPHIC SYSTEMS
    The brain's ability to perform efficient and fault-tolerant data processing is strongly related with its peculiar interconnected adaptive architecture, based on redundant neural circuits interacting at different scales. By emulating the brain's processing and learning mechanisms, computing technologies strive to (…)
  • Séminaire PMMH - Francesca Borghi Università degli Studi di Milano
    Vendredi 20 juin de 11h00 à 12h00 - Salle réunion PMMH 1
    REPROGRAMMABLE HARDWARE FOR DATA PROCESSING AT THE EDGE : A NEW COMPUTING PARADIGM BASED ON NEUROMORPHIC SYSTEMS
    The brain's ability to perform efficient and fault-tolerant data processing is strongly related with its peculiar interconnected adaptive architecture, based on redundant neural circuits interacting at different scales. By emulating the brain's processing and learning mechanisms, computing technologies strive to (…)
  • Séminaire PMMH - Salvatore Federico (University of Calgary, Canada)
    Vendredi 4 juillet de 11h00 à 12h00 - Salle réunion PMMH 1
    Continuum Mechanics of Hydrated Fibre-Reinforced Soft Tissues
    Biological tissues can be represented as bi-phasic continua, with a porous solid phase saturated by an interstitial fluid and reinforced by collagen fibers. This lecture will give an overview of the modelling techniques for fibre-reinforced porous composite materials with statistical orientation of the fibers. Both (…)
  • Séminaire PMMH - Salvatore Federico (University of Calgary, Canada)
    Vendredi 4 juillet de 11h00 à 12h00 - Salle réunion PMMH 1
    Continuum Mechanics of Hydrated Fibre-Reinforced Soft Tissues
    Biological tissues can be represented as bi-phasic continua, with a porous solid phase saturated by an interstitial fluid and reinforced by collagen fibers. This lecture will give an overview of the modelling techniques for fibre-reinforced porous composite materials with statistical orientation of the fibers. Both (…)

Information for the speakers

The audience is composed of people with rather heterogeneous backgrounds including specialists in solids, fluids, granular flows, statistical physics... so the idea is to keep your talk understandable by people not necessarily working in your field... The seminar time slot runs from 11am to noon so the best is to make the talk last around 45 minutes to leave some time for discussion.

Link to cofee seminar (internal, every Thursday)


Top



Practical information

Laboratoire : 01 40 79 45 22
Directeur : Ramiro GODOY DIANA
Codirecteur : Laurent DUCHEMIN
Administratrice : Frédérique AUGER (01 40 79 45 22)
Gestionnaire : Claudette BAREZ (01 40 79 58 53)
Courriel : dir (arobase) pmmh.espci.fr