Carlos Portela is the d’Arbeloff Career Development Professor in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, where he was given the Centennial Award for the best thesis in Mechanical and Civil Engineering. His current research lies at the intersection of materials science, mechanics, and nano-to-macro fabrication with the objective of designing and testing novel materials—with features spanning from nanometers to centimeters—that yield unprecedented mechanical and acoustic properties. Dr. Portela is a recipient of the 2022 NSF CAREER Award, the 2019 Gold Paper Award from the Society of Engineering Science (SES), and his work has been featured in The National Nanotechnology Initiative Supplement to the President’s 2020 Budget (National Science and Technology Council).
Talk : Uncovering the mechanics of architected materials in dynamic conditions
Architected materials across length scales—from nanometers to centimeters—have demonstrated unique mechanical properties enabled by a variety of 3D material morphologies. Significant advances in our understanding of these materials have pointed to structure-property relations that lead to unique macroscopic mechanical properties. Despite this progress, our knowledge of these materials is primarily limited to quasi-static deformation, while their dynamic properties remain to be fully understood. In this talk, we present explorations on the dynamic response of nano- and micro-architected materials under extreme dynamic conditions, presenting novel non-contact and impact characterization techniques to determine acoustic and energy absorption properties. Specifically, we will discuss high-throughput dynamic elastic-property characterization and supersonic microparticle impact testing on periodic architected materials at the nano- and microscale.