Randy Ewoldt, a professor and Kritzer Faculty Scholar in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, will present "Squishy materials toolbox: Complex fluids" at the Beckman Institute Director's Seminar at noon on Thursday, September 1 in 1005 Beckman and on Zoom. Lunch will be provided to in-person attendees.

Registration is required to attend.

Randy Ewoldt.Squishy materials toolbox: Complex fluids

From 3D printing to fire suppression and flow batteries, non-Newtonian fluids can achieve diverse objectives, but the complexity of material behavior introduces challenges to design, engineer, and predict performance. This talk will survey useful rheological complexity along with organizing principles and design methods as we consider the following questions: How can non-Newtonian properties be useful? What properties are needed? How can we get those properties?

Randy H. Ewoldt is professor of mechanical science and engineering and Kritzer Faculty Scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is also a part-time faculty member at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and an affiliate faculty member at the Materials Research Laboratory. He conducts fundamental research in fluid mechanics, rheology, and soft matter. He is the winner of numerous awards for research and teaching accomplishments, including the PECASE award from the White House. He received his B.S. in 2004 from Iowa State University, and his M.S. in 2006 and Ph.D. in 2009 from MIT. He completed his postdoc at the University of Minnesota. In 2018, he was a Guest Professor at ETH-Zürich.

Ewoldt regularly lectures at rheology short courses in the U.S. and Europe.

The publication “Designing Complex Fluids" is accessible at: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-fluid-031821-104935