Doctoral

Composite materials, such as metal- and polymer-matrix composites, exhibit both elastic and dissipative effects when subjected to macroscopic loadings. Even when the phases of the composite are characterized by a simple Maxwell rheology, the complex viscoelastic interactions between the phases give rise to emergent behavior at the macroscopic scale. Incorporating these ``long-memory'' effects in the […]

Periodic media and resonant, acoustic/elastic metamaterials possess extraordinary frequency band gaps where no waves may propagate. In this dissertation, we leverage numerical simulations to gain insight into practical ways to effectively measure and characterize the behavior of these materials from experimental observables and also explore physical mechanisms to optimize their performance, particularly in the context […]

Heterogeneous materials are commonly found in nature (e.g. soil, rock, blood) and engineering applications (e.g. paints, lubricants, sintered materials). Understanding the microstructure-properties relations is crucial to predicting how these materials fail and behave during processing. In this thesis, we develop semi-analytical homogenization estimates for the macroscopic properties and field statistics of viscoplastic composites. A generalization […]