SMILE-Soft Materials Investigation Lab for Engineers
About SMILE: The Soft Materials Investigation Lab for Engineers is a cutting-edge facility dedicated to exploring the properties, behaviors, and applications of soft materials. Soft materials, such as polymers (Dielectric elastomer), gels, foams, and biological materials, play a critical role in various engineering fields, including biomedical engineering, material science, and robotics. This lab provides researchers with the tools and resources to analyze these materials' mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties, enabling them to design innovative solutions for real-world challenges. By combining advanced testing equipment with a collaborative research environment, the lab fosters interdisciplinary learning and innovation. Whether it's developing biocompatible materials for medical devices or creating flexible components for next-generation electronics, the Soft Materials Investigation Lab equips researchers with the expertise and hands-on experience needed to push the boundaries of material science.
About PI (Dr. Aman Khurana): Currently, I am working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Indore. Prior to that, I worked as a Post-doctoral Researcher in Intelligent Materials Systems Lab, Saarland University, Saarbrucken, Germany. My research is mainly focusing on developing smart material-based structures. I have received my Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Specialized in Continuum Mechanics) from IIT-Roorkee in 2022.
My main areas of interest include Soft materials mechanics, Dynamics of minimum energy structures made up of electroactive polymers. I am a highly motivated dynamic scholar and fully dedicated to the original research. Iam regularly writes and reviews articles for various peer-reviewed international journals and conferences. Based on the aforementioned work, I have documented several scientific articles in international journals of high repute as well as conference papers. I am the recipient of DST Inspire Faculty Fellowship 2022 from Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. I am also the recipient of the Ratan Prakash Memorial Gold Medal (2017) for standing First at M.Tech. (Applied mechanics).
Further, I have been actively involved in various research works in collaboration with Prof. Zurlo, National University of Ireland, Galway on stability analysis of wrinkling in dielectric membrane and with Prof. Mukhopadhyay, University of Southampton, UK on nonlinear analysis of electro-magneto-active thin membranes.
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PG/UG students interested in working in my research area may contact me via email and include their resume/CV as an attachment.
Thought: "Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of energy and enthusiasm"