Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Seminar

PRESENTATION: Granular media has long been an important material system for multiple disciplines, from as fundamental as (geo) physics to as applied as (civil) engineering. More recently, it also started to receive growing interest from the material science community. In this talk, we discuss how the same small-scale contact process connects to different large-scale mechanical properties -- specifically rheology (a more fluid-like concept) and elasticity (a more solid-like concept) -- of different types of granular media ranging from (as “conventional” as) glass beads to (as “exotic” as) catenated frames. Based on these studies, we also discuss various exciting future opportunities for (granular) physics, (computational) mechanics, as well as (advanced) manufacturing.

PRESENTER: Liuchi Li is an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental at Princeton. He has a keen interest in understanding how the mechanics of (many-body) contact, friction, and fracture shape the emergent (nonlinear) behaviors of various complex material systems. Professor Li obtained his Ph.D. and M.S. from Caltech (Pasadena, CA) and his B.S. from Tongji University (Shanghai, China). Before joining Princeton, he spent a few years at Berkeley Lab, Hopkins, and EPFL in Switzerland as a postdoc and a visiting professor. Professor Li is the recipient of the 2025 Mechanics of Materials Early Career Award from Elsevier, as well as the 2022 Thomas JR Hughes Fellowship from the US National Congress for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNC/TAM).