Meng and Yu spent the summer working on developing methods for measuring thermal properties of soft nanomaterials including hydrogels. This research aims to develop a low cost, reliable, accurate method of measuring the thermal conductivity or thermal diffusivity of soft materials.

Part I: Create hydrogels test sample of varying composition including nanoparticles to tune the thermal properties. 

Part II: Design proper experiments to accurately measure thermal properties of soft materials.   Calibrate the techniques and assess accuracy of the methods with simulations. Implement the techniques for hydrogel samples.

Please check out their work at the Symposium and stay tuned for future progress! 

For details on the SURF Symposium, see https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/Research/SURF/Participants/Summer/Events/RequiredMeetings/surf-symposium

For more details on the SURF program, check out the website: https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/Research/SURF/