Sung Hoon Kang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He earned a Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics at Harvard University and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and Seoul National University, respectively. Sung Hoon has been investigating bioinspired sustainable solutions to address current challenges in engineering materials, structures and devices with applications including resiliency, sensing, energy, and healthcare.

Talk Title: Toward sustainable and resilient materials through bioinspiration and design

I will present our ongoing efforts to design and make novel materials and structures for a resilient and sustainable future through coupled material systems. First, I will present a material system that can self-adapt to mechanical loadings and mitigate damages through coupling between stress and material synthesis, inspired by bone [1]. Second, I will present architected materials (or metamaterials) with extreme and adaptive energy dissipation based on liquid crystal elastomers through coupling between nonlinear geometric effects and nonlinear material properties, guided by computational modeling [2]. We envision that our findings can contribute to opening new strategies for designing and making synthetic materials with self-adaptable mechanical properties, leading to more resilient and sustainable systems with applications including automotive, aerospace, infrastructure, and healthcare.

[1] Orrego et al., Advanced Materials, 32, 1906970 (2020). [2] Jeon et al., Advanced Materials, 2200272 (2022).

Open to the public, special guest lecture for the course 05-499/899 Sustainable Design: Materials, Artifacts and Computational Tools

Zoom link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/4164228265