The mission of the MEENA group is to support the acceleration of materials development and qualification for extreme applications by advancing high-throughput characterization techniques and discovering the performance-governing mechanisms.

Our research interests are:

• To understand the roles of engineerable and radiation-induced defects on mechanical properties.
  • See our publications on how such fundamental understandings accelerates the development of novel high-performance materials: Yang et al., Nature 2021, Yang et al., Materials & Design 2020, Chen et al., Materials Science and Engineering A 2018. 
• To bridge the length-scale gap between small-scale and macroscale mechanical tests.
  • See our publications on how the micromechanical properties are sensitive to the local microstructures: Chen el al., Acta Materialia 2020, Chen el al., Acta Materialia 2017. Such microstructure – local mechanical property relationships underpin the similarities and differences between mechanical tests of different length scales.
  • See our in-situ nanomechanical testing system. 
• To advance the characterization techniques for key material properties that are otherwise hard, expensive, and time-consuming to assess. 
  • See how we are measuring the spatially resolved mechanical properties, coating adhesion strength and dynamic fracture strength using laser-based non-contact technologies: the LUMAC.  

Please find the full publication list at the PI's Google Scholar Page.