Prof. Dr. Chuang Feng, Nanjing Tech University, China

Biography:Dr. Feng received his bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from Chang’an University in 2004 and Master degree in solid mechanics from University of Science and Technology Beijing in 2007. After obtaining PhD degree in Mechanical and Materials Engineering from the University of Western Ontario (Cananda) in 2014. Dr. Feng started to work as research fellow at RMIT University from 2015 till 2019 and then gained professorship position in Civil Engineering at Nanjing Tech University. His research interests are mainly focused on smart materials and structures. He has published more than 30 SCI journal papers, which received more than 1700 google scholar citations with h-index being 21. Among the published papers, three are ESI highly cited and one was selected as IOPselect due to its “novelty, significant and potential impact on future research”. As PI, Dr. Feng was granted research funding of nearly 6 million RMB. Also he received several prestigious awards and honors, including Endearvour Research Fellowship from Department of Education of Australia, Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DERA) from Australian Research Council, Best Paper Award from Australian Composite Structure Society, JSPS Research Fellowship, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Talents of Jiangsu Province, Award for Oversea Outstanding Self-financed Graduates and Academic Achievement Scholarship and Western Graduate Thesis Research Funding Award from the University of Western Ontario.

Speech Title: Experiment and Modelling on Electrical Properties of Graphene Reinforced Porous Cement Composites

Abstract: The incorporation of ionic liquids (ILs) as inclusions for dielectric composites generates great interest due to their potential applications in soft actuator. Experiments have shown the electrical properties of IL enhanced soft composites (ILESCs) are dependent on AC frequency of the electrical loading. This work develops a mixed micromechanical model with incorporating electric double layer (EDL) to predict the electrical properties of the ILESCs. Bazant-Storey-Kornyshev (BSK) theory is integrated into EDL model for the first time to evaluate the influence of crowding and overscreening effects. The results show excellent agreement with the experimental data. Parametric analysis is conducted to explore the optimization of ILESCs with increased dielectric constant and stability. IL with smaller size and aspect ratio increases the dielectric constant of the ILESCs more significantly. Using ILs instead as inclusions delays the frequency-facilitated dielectric response, which is beneficial to improve the dielectric stability of the ILESCs.