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UID:0-8113@eng.ufl.edu
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260203T125000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260203T134000
DTSTAMP:20260116T143505Z
URL:https://www.eng.ufl.edu/news-events/events/mae-seminar-defects-in-crac
 ks-and-contact-from-enhancing-toughness-to-suppressing-wetting/
SUMMARY:MAE Seminar: Defects in cracks and contact: from enhancing toughnes
 s to suppressing wetting
DESCRIPTION:MAE Seminar: Defects in cracks and contact: from enhancing toug
 hness to suppressing wetting\nDate: February 3\, 2026 Time: 12:50 PM Locat
 ion: MAE-A 303\nDr. John M. Kolinski\nAssistant Professor\nEngineering Mec
 hanics of Soft Interfaces\nInstitute of Mechanical Engineering\nSchool of 
 Engineering\nEPFL\, Lausanne\, Switzerland\nAbstract\nCracks can destroy s
 tructures. Contacts drive countless industrial processes. Though these see
 m very different\, the underlying mechanics are surprisingly similar: stre
 ss builds up and diverges at a single moving point — the tip of a crack 
 or the edge of a forming contact — driven by external forces. These regi
 ons are notoriously hard to study because they’re obscured within the su
 rrounding material. Using high-speed 3D imaging\, we capture these dynamic
 s in real time. Our work reveals that tiny defects and random noise strong
 ly influence both crack growth and contact formation. Two case studies hig
 hlight this: how geometry affects toughness in brittle hydrogels\, and how
  defects shape the formation of contacts. Despite their differences\, both
  systems show universal behaviors that emerge from these local\, nonlinear
  dynamics. We’ll conclude with a demonstration of how these insights can
  be applied — from boosting material toughness to precisely manipulating
  liquid droplets.\nBiography\nKolinski heads the Engineering Mechanics of 
 Soft Interfaces laboratory in the Institute of Mechanical Engineering in S
 TI at EPFL\, where he currently mentors five PhD students. The group’s r
 esearch activities span the domain of continuum mechanics\, with research 
 into liquid-solid wetting\, mechanics of viscoelastic solids and fracture 
 of hydrogels. With colleagues\, Kolinski organized two international works
 hops in 2023 and 2024 on fracture mechanics\, at CECAM in Lausanne and at 
 PCTS in Princeton. Prior to starting his group at EPFL in 2017\, Kolinski 
 was a Fulbright fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Physic
 s department\, where he worked on dynamic fracture in hydrogels. Kolinski 
 defended his PhD thesis on the role of air in droplet impact on a smooth s
 olid surface at Harvard in 2013\, with support from the NSF GRFP and NDSEG
  fellowships.\nFaculty Host: Dr. Ghatu Subhash
CATEGORIES:Seminars
LOCATION:MAE-A Room 303\, 939 Sweetwater Drive\, Gainesville\, FL\, 32611\,
  United States
GEO:29.643814;-82.34865
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