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MEAM Seminar: “Fractured Flows: Suspensions Pushed Too Far”

October 13 at 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Details
Date: October 13, 2026
Time: 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Event Category: SeminarColloquium
Event Tags:
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  • Organizer
    Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
    215-746-1818
    meam@seas.upenn.edu
    View Website
    Venue
    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street
    Philadelphia
    PA 19104
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    Particle suspensions can fracture into intricate patterns as they are pushed out of equilibrium. We probe the fracture and relaxation characteristics of dense aqueous cornstarch suspensions that exhibit discontinuous shear-thickening behavior. Air injection into three-dimensional bulk suspensions can lead to smooth bubbles that rise upwards under the action of buoyancy or to sharp fractures that remain attached to the injection nozzle. We link the shape and the relaxation dynamics of the air cavity to the suspension rheology. We discuss how the bubbles exhibit distinct bursting patterns as they reach the air interface, and how the bursting characteristics might reveal information about the rheology of thin suspension films. In a second example, we report the crack dynamics and morphology occurring as drops of aqueous nanoparticle suspensions evaporate on a glass surface and leave behind a solid particle deposit. We show that in the final stage of drying, the stresses in the deposit can be released in two distinct ways: by bending out of plane or by forming a second generation of cracks.

    Speaker

    Irmgard Bischofberger

    Mark Hyman, Jr. Career Development Professor and Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Irmgard Bischofberger is an experimentalist working in the fields of fluid dynamics and soft condensed matter. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Physics Department at the University of Chicago. She is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Her research interests include the spontaneous pattern formation from fluid instabilities and drying processes and non-equilibrium phenomena in soft gels. Irmgard is passionate about communicating science to a diverse audience and has longstanding ‘Science and Arts’ collaborations with artists and musicians.