Dr. Yinan Cui, a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Nasr Ghoniem’s UCLA MAE group, was awarded the 2017/18 Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research “Honorable Mention” which includes a prize of $1000.
During her time at UCLA, Cui has made several important and outstanding contributions in developing the state-of-art multiscale and multiphysics material computational method, and disclosing the microscopic physical origins of material deformation and failure. The developed simulation method opens up a new route for effectively investigating the notorious flow localization problem in irradiated material, and raises the new possibility to uncover the elastodynamics effect on defect physics under shock loading. Cui innovatively revealed several intriguing deformation mechanisms in the load-size-temperature-strain rate space. These works provide valuable insights in designing more resilient material that can be used under severe environments in future energy and power technologies.
Other collaborators: Prof. Vijay Gupta in MAE, Prof. Jaime Marian in MSE, and Giacomo Po in MAE.