This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will support research that seeks to understand the fundamental mechanical behavior of crumpled nanostructures across multiple scales. Crumpled matter is ubiquitous in nature and daily life, serving both biological and engineered purposes. Understanding the mechanics of crumples at small scales is inherently challenging due to their multifaceted hierarchical structure. This award will develop an integrated experimental-computational framework for determining and predicting the complex behavior of crumpled matter composed of nano-sheets. The predictive models and tools will enable and facilitate the design and development of lightweight, multifunctional applications in energy storage, drug delivery, solid lubrication, and nanocomposite-based structures. The education component of this project will focus on knowledge transfer to K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students with emphasis on underrepresented groups. The implementation of artistic elements in the form of visual and paper arts will be a key strategy to engage students through hands-on outreach activities and exciting learning material.

The objective of this project is to establish an integrated experimental-computational framework to determine and predict the complex structural and mechanical behavior of nano-crumpled sheets by understanding their deformation mechanisms at the nanoscale and above. The research will focus on how surface adhesion as a key driving force could improve the load-bearing capacity and flaw tolerance of nano-crumpled sheets by spatially rearranging stress distributions within a hierarchical structure. Basic mechanics models of crumples, coarse-grained molecular dynamics, mechanical testing, and machine learning will form the bases of the approach. Specific research tasks include: 1) Understanding the complex structure of crumpled nanosheets as a function of varying sizes, shapes, elasticity, and adhesion; 2) Elucidating the role of surface adhesion in the deformation of nano-crumples with and without defects or engineered cuts; 3) Determining structure-property correlations operative at the nanoscale and higher.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.