As a Ph.D. student in polymer science and engineering, I am deeply interested in the fluid mechanics of polymer solutions. A variety of counterintuitive phenomena arise from the non-Newtonian nature of these systems, particularly under out-of-equilibrium conditions. Instabilities play a central role in many of these nonlinear behaviors, giving rise to changes in material properties, complex flow responses, and rich pattern formation.
Through a combination of theoretical approaches and state-of-the-art experimental techniques, I investigate the nonlinear dynamics of complex fluids, including their rheological behavior under shear flow and instability-induced pattern formation. My goal is to uncover the underlying theoretical framework that connects mathematical models with experimental observations.
Here are some of the key words that will outline my future research:
Pocket DoS and CaBER
Flow programming
Instabilities and pattern formation
Waves on viscous liquid surfaces
Here are some projects that I worked on as an undergrad:
Osmotic pressure of polyelectrolyte solutions. Osmotic pressure is a crucial physical quantity in numerous contexts, including biological phenomena such as water flux in plant vacuoles, and engineering challenges like seawater desalination using membrane methods. For polyelectrolyte solutions with added salt, the existing Donnan equilibrium theory can describe osmotic pressure in most regimes. However, it relies on some a priori assumptions and may oversimplify the complex electrostatic interactions. Therefore, it is essential to carefully reexamine the system’s electrostatics and consider osmotic pressure from a different perspective.
Swelling of red blood cells. For decades, theorists and physiologists have sought to explain the biconcave discoid shape of erythrocytes, or red blood cells. Significant progress has been made by considering the bending energy of the lipid bilayer membrane and the competition between limited membrane resources and ongoing biochemical activities. However, another important question is how red blood cells react to environmental changes, such as variations in pH or ionic strength. In this work, we aim to explain how red blood cells change shape in response to external salt concentration by identifying the energy minimum of each state.
Mingyu Duan, Jiadong Chen, Yiming Liu, Zhaofeng Peng, and Guang Chen. “Swelling of spherical polyelectrolyte gels.” Chinese Journal of Polymer Science (2024): 1386-1392.