Domaines
Soft matter
Type of internship
Expérimental et théorique Description
Active mechanics describes materials that consume energy to exert mechanical forces. It applies both to living matter and active materials, for which we have recently demonstrated exciting potential for applications. So far, active materials are much less advanced than living matter. An ERC Starting Grant project has recently been started in the lab to bridge this gap between living and artificial matter. This project will create an artificial version of one of the simplest forms of life: the slime mold. The life of this organism is entirely based on a vascular network that actively contracts to transport fluids. Self-Flow aims at understanding how such self-contracting vascular network operates and, from there, create an artificial material that shows autonomous functionalities similar to living matter.
In this context, this internship will focus on explaining how active contractions generate fluid flows in an artificial channel. The student will work together with PhD students and postdocs and use experimental facilities to measure flow profiles in a channel that actively contracts. He/She will characterize these flow profiles as a function of the nature of the active contraction and the geometry of the channel. He/She will develop models inspired by our previous studies on active solids . These results will open the way to a better modeling of living systems and the development of engineering applications via new functionalities in active artificial materials.
Contact
Martin Brandenbourger