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Research at the �鶹app could lead to stronger and lighter materials, better protective equipment, and improved strategies for preserving biological tissues by learning how to control the microscopic structures that form inside modern materials.

Mrityunjay Kothari, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, will lead this effort thanks in part to a $486,899 award from the U.S. Army Research Office. The three-year grant will support fundamental research into how mechanical forces can shape the internal structure of materials, ultimately influencing how they perform in real-world applications. 

Kothari's research focuses on liquid-liquid phase separation occurring inside fluid-saturated elastic materials — a phenomenon quite different from simple mixtures like oil and water. When phase separation happens inside a soft, elastic solid, the growing droplets must push against the surrounding material, which resists and pushes back. This interplay between the separation process and the elastic forces fundamentally changes the outcome: droplets can be smaller, more uniform, and arrested at specific sizes rather than continuously growing and merging as they would in a simple liquid. Understanding and controlling this coupling between phase separation and elasticity is central to Kothari's work. In both biological tissues and engineered materials, these microscopic structures strongly influence properties like strength, flexibility, and energy absorption.

This project aims to determine how external mechanical forces such as stretching or compression can control where and how these structures form. By developing new computational models, the research could predict and guide this process with precision, giving engineers a new way to design materials with specific properties through mechanical loading rather than chemistry alone.

"Nature deftly exploits the interplay between elasticity and phase separation,” says Kothari. “It's how cells organize biomolecules without membranes. By uncovering the underlying mechanical principles, we gain both fundamental insight and inspiration for engineering new materials."

Potential applications include soft composite materials with tailored microstructures, energy-absorbing protective structures, and scaffolds for tissue engineering. The research may also provide insights relevant to cryopreservation, where ice crystal formation inside elastic biological tissues causes mechanical damage — a key barrier to preserving organs for transplantation.

The award is through the Army Research Office’s Basic Scientific Research program, specifically the Solid Mechanics program area, which supports investigations of the behavior of material systems under extreme high loading and loading rate events, such as impact and blast, repetitive loading, and temperature and pressure extremes.

"This award will support graduate students working at the frontiers of theoretical and computational mechanics, training the next generation of researchers to tackle complex multiphysics problems,” says Kothari.