Upcoming Events
School of CSE Seminar Series: Mauro Rodriguez
![mauro rodriguez.jpg mauro rodriguez.jpg](/sites/default/files/images/events/2025-01/mauro%2520rodriguez.jpg)
Speaker: Mauro Rodriguez, assistant professor at Brown University
Date and Time: February 7, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Location: Coda 114
Host: Spencer Bryngelson
Title: Numerical Simulations of Inertial Microcavitation for Fluid-Structure Interactions and Soft Matter Rheometry
Abstract: Understanding the bubble dynamics and material response interactions is critical to predicting, enhancing or mitigating damage of soft tissues in biomedical applications (e.g., focused ultrasound therapies). Recent advancements have enabled the mechanical property characterization of soft (tissue-like) materials using spherical microbubbles in the high strain rate regime (i.e., 103 - 108 1/s). We will present our recent numerical modeling developments to: (i) characterize soft tissues via the Inertial Microcavitation Rheometry (IMR) technique [Estrada et al. JMPS 2018] and (ii) understand the fluid-structure interaction dynamics of a non-spherical inertial microbubble collapse at a gel-water interface.
IMR compares bubble radius histories from numerical simulations and laser-induced cavitation (LIC) experiments for soft material rheometry of hydrogels. We have accelerated the IMR characterization procedure from hours to seconds by using a modified Rayleigh collapse time derived from an energy analysis approach. We show that the augmented collapse time accounts for surface tension, weak compressibility, and linear viscoelastic constitutive models. We obtained agreement between theory, numerical simulations, and LIC experimental data for water and various hydrogels.
Soft tissues are typically multi-material environments (e.g., muscle tissue) in which inertially collapsing microbubbles become non-spherical. The modeling and experimental observation of this fluid-structure interaction is challenging and poorly understood and beyond the capabilities of IMR. We will present our study of a simplified geometry involving an inertially collapsing microbubble at a hydrogel-water interface. We leverage the open-source Multi-component Flow Code [Radhakrishnan & Le Berre et al. Comp. Phys. Comm. (2024)] which solves the compressible flow equations using a 6-equation multiphase model with a phase change and hyperelasticity model for compressible materials. We will show the agreement of the strains and velocity contours and wave propagation speeds between our simulations and LIC experiments. Future directions and applications for numerically simulating multi-component flows involving finite deformations in and near viscoelastic materials will also be presented.
Bio: Mauro Rodriguez Jr.is an Assistant Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering at Brown University, where he joined the faculty in 2021. In 2010, Rodriguez earned his B.S. degree with honors in Mechanical Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). In 2012, he received an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University as a graduate engineering fellow. He earned with Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor under the supervision of Professor Eric Johnsen. Rodriguez's doctoral thesis focused on high-fidelity computational fluid dynamic simulations of bubble dynamics near (linear) viscoelastic media. Prior to joining Brown, Rodriguez was a Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation-Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate postdoctoral research fellow at the California Institute of Technology under the mentorship of Professor Tim Colonius. A Chicago Little Village native, Rodriguez is committed to increasing underserved and underrepresented individuals, diversity, equity, and inclusion across all levels of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce pathways.
Event Details
Media Contact
Spencer Bryngelson (shb@gatech.edu)
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