Tomás Gillanders

Nonlinear Elasticity, Solid Mechanics, Continuum Mechanics, Active Materials, Dynamical Systems

Active materials are characterised by a dynamic microstructure that can locally drive motion, grow and remodel itself, leading to large-scale observed effects that differ greatly from those of everyday 'passive' materials, and may even seem unintuitive or impossible until the small-scale mechanisms that drive them are understood.  We see a car move itself, but we do not notice the engine that drives it.  

Many models of active materials are phenomenological in nature, designed to mimic the behaviour observed without properly accounting for the fundamental principles of physics that govern every material.  I am interested in formulating concrete continuum theories of active solids that account for the dynamic microstructure that drives 'activity' while respecting those principles, for what active solid are such theories applicable, and what behaviours do such models predict.