Research question
How do soft and architected materials respond when loading occurs too quickly for conventional mechanical tests—and how does repeated cavitation accumulate interfacial damage?
Approach
I use laser-induced cavitation as a localized, high-rate loading event and ultra-high-speed imaging to measure the resulting bubble and material dynamics. Full-field deformation measurement and automated sequence analysis connect the observed motion to rate-dependent material response.
- Measure transient deformation during rapid cavitation loading
- Study rate effects, instability, and interfacial damage accumulation
- Track bubble radius and interface motion in challenging high-speed image sequences
- Extend the analysis from soft gel-like materials to liquid-filled architected systems
Why it matters
Hydrogels, biological tissues, and soft interfaces can experience loading rates far beyond the reach of standard rheometry. Cavitation-based experiments provide a way to probe that regime while preserving the spatial and temporal information needed for mechanics-based interpretation.
This work contributes to the Yang Research Group’s broader research on laser-induced inertial cavitation in soft materials.