Project description DEENESFRITPL Material testing inspired by animal sounds Complex fluids, a family of multiphase fluids, are ubiquitous across a wide array of industrial products including cement, food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Characterising their strength and elasticity when subject to an applied force is often not simple as their properties can vary widely. Cataloguing the whole range of material properties is time consuming. EU funding of the OrthoChirp project will enable researchers to improve characterisation of soft material properties. The focus will be on combining the optimally windowed chirp, a technique inspired by the sound sequences of certain animals with superposition flows in rheology. These techniques will be used to test the properties of gelling polymers, proteins, colloidal gels or any other ‘mutating’ soft materials. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective "The purpose of this project is to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a novel and universal method to mechano-spectroscopically investigate transient evolution of a complex-fluid's microstructure when subjected to a non-linear deformation or flow. Dr Victor Boudara will pursue this goal at the Department of Chemical Engineering of KU Leuven, under the supervision of Prof Christian Clasen. The goals of the project will be achieved by combining an optimized excitation signal structure (as recently introduced with the novel ""Optimally Windowed Chirp"" technique) with the concept of orthogonal superposition rheometry. The possibility to superpose such a rapid mechano-spectroscopy onto deforming system would allow, for the first time, to characterise the material property evolution of rapidly mutating materials over a wide range of frequencies under nonlinear shear flow. Such materials include gelling polymers, proteins, colloidal gels or jamming glasses, which are not only of fundamental but also of industrial and biomedical interest." Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsnatural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciencesengineering and technologymaterials engineeringengineering and technologychemical engineering Keywords Rheometry Rheology Soft Matter Complex Fluids Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2018 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN Net EU contribution € 178 320,00 Address Oude markt 13 3000 Leuven Belgium See on map Region Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00