Abstract

Over a broad spectrum of engineering applications, ranging from aircraft bird strike to cell phone drop, engineering materials are subjected to impact loading. To efficiently design impact-resistant structures, it is critical to quantitatively understand the mechanical response of materials to high-rate loading. However, most of the documented data are rather scattered since there are no well-established standards that guide the harvest of such results. My research effort has been focused on the characterization of high-rate behavior of materials under valid conditions and the development of corresponding experimental methods. In this presentation, the challenges in characterizing the dynamic behavior of soft materials are outlined. Innovative experimental techniques are then introduced, followed by example experiments, typical applications, and future challenges.

Biography

Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in Aeronautics at California Institute of Technology in 1995. He started his faculty career at The University of Arizona in 1995 and moved to Purdue in 2005 where he is currently a Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics and Materials Engineering. His research interests are in the development of innovative dynamic experimental techniques and the dynamic characterization of engineering materials under extreme conditions. The research results from his group have been published in a book and over 140 journal articles. He was a University Faculty Scholar at Purdue, and is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of Society for Experimental Mechanics, and an Associate Fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Mechanics and as a member of the United States National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics.