Brown University associate professor Vikas Srivastava received a new grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) as the principal investigator to support scientific research on materials in extreme environments. Titled Materials and Structures in Extreme Environments: Modeling, Experiments, and Data-Driven Design, the project includes co-PIs and research area leads, professors Yuri Bazilevs and Pradeep Guduru from Brown Engineering, and collaborators from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
While rapid and significant advances in manufacturing and materials science are continuously creating modern materials capable of operating in extreme conditions, the accompanying scientific understanding of their mechanical behavior and modeling of these materials to predict their response in extreme conditions remains a challenging open problem in mechanics. For this fundamental scientific research work, Srivastava and his Co-PIs and collaborators Yuri Bazilevs, Pradeep Guduru, Miguel Bessa and Anita Shukla from Brown University, Helio Matos and Arun Shukla from the University of Rhode Island, and Ryan Elliott from the University of Minnesota working with scientists from Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, R.I. will focus on the undersea operational challenges of sea hulls, underwater unmanned vehicles, and submarines. These include prolonged exposure to seawater, mechanical impacts, underwater shock loads, and marine biofouling, all of which can degrade the material and structural performance, reducing the availability and mission readiness of Navy systems.
Addressing these challenges will involve a research effort that combines fundamental experimental studies, constitutive modeling, and computational innovation to understand and develop innovative lightweight materials and structures resistant to seawater degradation, biofouling, shock, and fracture. Solid mechanics and materials researchers from Brown’s School of Engineering are uniquely experienced and positioned to continue leading scientific research on materials in extreme environments, the same topic under which Srivastava and Bazilevs organized last fall’s AmeriMech Symposium hosted by Brown and sponsored by the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics.
“We are entering a transformative era for materials science and mechanics. This ONR grant allows us to study how next-generation lightweight materials behave under marine environments, so we can push the boundaries of material applications in these conditions,” Srivastava said. “By conducting fundamental research that integrates experiments, physics-based models, and advanced computational methods, we aim to solve long-standing challenges in material fracture, damage, and multiphysics interactions. Ultimately, this research will provide a clear blueprint for designing safer and more resilient next-generation structures. This research will further support and complement the ongoing research in MUSE (Brown’s Center for Mechanics of Undersea Science and Engineering).”