Below are some suggestions for PhD/DPhil projects that may be of
interest to prospective students. These projects are not
funded, but if you would be interested in applying for
departmental funding with a view to working on one of these
projects, please contact me by emailing dominic.vella@maths.ox.ac.uk.
Microscale coiling and wrapping in nature and technology
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This project would be in collaboration with
Ian Griffiths,
and
Janine Nunes who is based in the Complex Fluids Group at Princeton University.
Micro- and nanoscale coiling and wrapping phenomena find themselves in many natural scenarios, from the functionality of a spider web to the packing of RNA within virus capsids. Similar behaviour is at play in manufacturing technologies including flexible electronic devices (like bendable smartphones), and in multifunctional soft materials for bioengineering and healthcare applications, such as materials for tissue engineering. The successful manufacture of such soft devices, however, depend on our understanding of the wrapping phenomena and our ability to control it to engineer such products at small length scales.
In this project we will study the mathematics of microscale wrapping
under a combination of deformability, fluid flow, electrostatics
and surface tension. Our work will be underpinned by two example
cases: one inspired by nature and one in technology. The first
example case we will study concerns the wrapping of
fibres within droplets. This is motivated by some spider webs, which consist of
long threads that are held taught by small scale droplets on them:
the surface tension of these droplets is strong enough to 'spool'
additional thread within them. This spool ensures that excess length is
reeled into the droplets and the thread remains taut but may also
be unravelled if the fibre in the web is stretched (for example
when an insect flies into the web). It is thought the presence of
droplets also helps to dissipate the fly's kinetic energy without
too much stretching. In this project, we will study these unravelling and reel-back processes.
The second case concerns the external wrapping of microscale charged fibres around oppositely charged soft particles through mutual electrostatic attraction. As they attract one another, the fibre will wrap around the particle, squeezing it and deforming its shape as it does so. The initial configuration and subsequent rate of wrapping have been observed to dictate the shape of the particle and the configuration when the fibre ceases to wrap. In this project, we will investigate the wrapping process and dependence on the deformability of the particle and the fibre, the strength of the electrostatic interaction, and its dependence on the initial configuration.
The mathematical models we derive in both of these example cases will be used to compare and contrast the wrapping dynamics and dependence of the behaviour and resulting configurations on the forces that are involved.
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Power amplification in elastic snap-through
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This project would be in collaboration with Derek Moulton.
Elastic snap-through occurs when a deformable object jumps from one state
to another, as in the toy popper shown on the left. While this
motion takes place very rapidly, the setting up of the first state
can be done very slowly. This makes snap-through very useful in
plants such as the venus flytrap where water can slowly be pumped
to prime the leaves that then rapidly snap shut when an insect
lands on them. This slow storage of energy, followed by rapid
release, is also exploited by a range of insects to power
spectacular jumps and snapping jaws. In such cases,
snap-through allows the insect to overcome a fundamental barrier
to fast motions at small scales: the power of muscle is
limited. Instead by priming the system at low power (using
muscle), and then releasing this energy rapidly through
snap-through, the power of muscle can effectively be amplified.
In this project, the student would seek to understand how
this power-amplification can be effectively harnessed: how do
insects translate the energy stored into useful work?
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