School of Mechanical Engineering Prof. Sefi Givli

School of Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Monday, May 15, 2017 at 14:00
Wolfson Building of Mechanical Engineering, Room 206

Bi-stability and multi-stability in structures

Prof. Sefi Givli

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion -Israel Institute of Technology

A wide range of intriguing mechanical phenomena is related to bi-stability and multi-stability. Examples are the shape memory effect and super-elasticity observed in materials undergoing martensitic phase transformations, the mechanical behavior of nano-pillars under compression, and the saw-tooth pattern observed in single molecule experiments of structural proteins such as titin. All these structures are characterized by a wiggly energy landscape and multiple metastable configurations.

In the past few years, we have developed theoretical models aiming at providing insights into the mechanical behavior of such structures. In this talk I will present some of our findings, with emphasis on consequences of discreteness in structures undergoing discrete phase transformations, such as nano-pillars and unfolding/refolding of proteins, and also mechanical aspects of the continuum-level behavior of structures undergoing remodeling or spatial organization of their composition.

Bio: Dr. Sefi Givli Earned his B.Sc (1994) in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Technion. He then served in the Israeli Air-Force as a field engineer and as a system engineer for the F-15/16 jet engines. He joined again the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Technion in 2000 for PhD studies (direct track). He then moved to Caltech for a two-year postdoc with Prof. Kaushik Bhattacharya at the department of Mechanical Engineering, where his research has expanded towards mechanics of micro-scale biological systems. Sefi returned to ME Technion in October 2008, where he serves as Assist. Prof. since then.

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