§ S PE E-Live! Presentation has been scheduled:  "Multi-Property Optimization of Nylon-EVOH Extrusions Produced Controllably by Chaotic Blending,"  Dave Zumbrunnen, October 23, 2008, 11:00 AM EST. For more information:   http://www.4spe.org/elearning/presentations/EL081023.php

§    Materials Science and Engineering student, Chaitra Mahesha, was awarded her doctoral degree during the fall semester commencement on December 20.  She is pictured here with her doctoral studies advisor, D. Zumbrunnen. Chaitra investigated processing and properties of novel multilayer nanocomposite materials first proposed and studied in LAPM&T.  She plans to work in industry following graduation and is especially interested in processing to develop materials having particular or enhanced physical properties. Congratulations Dr. Mahesha!  

§ The Center for Layered Polymeric Systems (CLiPS) has been established at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio by the National Science Foundation. Its mission statement is: "The Center will create an integrated program of research and deducation through the vehicle of a unique microlayering and nanolayering process technology at Case Western Reserve University. The enabling technology will be a platform for advancing the nation's science and technology agenda through development of new materials and materials systems and for educating a diverse American workforce through interdisciplinary education programs." More information is available on its web site: http://clips.case.edu/

§ LAPM&T doctoral candidate, Ms. Chaitra Mahesha, gave an invited talk at a conference, Functional Fillers, held on September 24-26, 2007 in Charleston, SC. Her talk focused on structure-composition optimization via in situ structuring in lieu of conventional mixing.   Chaitra's research focuses on novel multilayer nanocomposites formed by chaotic advection.  Multilayer nanocomposites were invented in LAPM&T and may have superior properties to nanocomposites produced by conventional processes.

§ Dave Zumbrunnen gave an invited talk on smart blending technology at the National Plastics Exhibit (NPE) held in Chicago, Illinois in June 2006. The talk was titled, "Functional Packaging Films Assembled with Smart Blending Technology Based on Chaotic Advection." In addition to packaging applications, other applications were described. He also met with company representatives having interests in smart blending. Smart blending was also featured on the front page of Plastics News on the opening day. The NPE was the international plastics technology event for 2006. It is held on a rotating 3-year basis in Chicago.  

§ LAPM&T has published a paper in the journal, Chemical Engineering Communications, clarifying how in situ structure development occurs in smart / chaotic blenders. Using a computational model developed by A. Joshi (PhD, 2004) and guidance from structure development observed in micrographs, the highly multi-layered blend morphologies of chaotic advection transformed into a wide variety of derivative fine-scale structures. In addition to comparisons to experimental results, the paper includes suggestions for further work. 

§ PPS America' Regional Meeting, Quebec City, Canada-2005: To address growing interest in smart blending (chaotic blending), a short paper was presented that provided an overview of key concepts. Interested persons should refer to our full-length papers and the on-line tutorial via the links on the home page for more complete information. To download a copy of the PPS paper: Key concepts by Zumbrunnen et al.

§  LAPM&T students and faculty members presented several papers at the 2005 Annual Technical Conference of the Society of Plastics Engineers held in Boston, Massachusetts in early May. Lab supervisor, Dave Zumbrunnen, also gave an invited talk at a Fundamentals Forum. This talk was titled, "Formation of Polymer Blends and Composites by Chaotic Advection." (talk abstract from conference program ).  The following papers were presented and published in the conference proceedings:

Mahesha, C., Zumbrunnen, D. A., and Parulekar, Y., “Novel Clay Nanocomposites with Platelets Oriented by Chaotic Advection,”  Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Technical Conference, Society of Plastics Engineers, Boston, MA, 2005, pp. 1920-1924. Joshi, A. S. and Zumbrunnen, D. A., “Influence of Shear on Immiscible Polymer Blend Morphology Development by Chaotic Advection,”  Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Technical Conference, Society of Plastics Engineers, Boston, MA, 2005 pp. 2385-2390. Chougule, V. A., Kimmel, R. M., and Zumbrunnen, D. A., “Development of Novel Barrier Films Using Chaotic Advection ‘Smart Blending’ Device,” Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Technical Conference, Society of Plastics Engineers, Boston, MA, 2005 pp. 2976-2981. Kulshreshtha, B., Dhoble, A., and Zumbrunnen, D. A., “Mechanical Property Optimization of Polypropylene Based Blends Using a Continuous Chaotic Advection Blender,” Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Technical Conference, Society of Plastics Engineers, Boston, MA, 2005, pp. 2418-2423. Zumbrunnen, D. A., Kulshreshtha, B., and Dhoble, A., “On-Line Morphology Control Features of Continuous Chaotic Advection Blenders,” Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Technical Conference, Society of Plastics Engineers, Boston, MA, 2005, pp. 238-243.

§ Plastics Technology Magazine: Smart blending technology was featured in the March 2004 issue in the Close-Up section (Chaotic Advection Creates New Polymer Blend Morphologies). For more information: http://www.plasticstechnology.com/articles/200403cu3.html . 

§ The NSF Workshop on Nanoscale Mechanical Engineering was held on June 15-16, 2003 at the NSF building in Arlington, Virginia.  Dave Zumbrunnen gave a presentation titled, 'Nanoscale Structures Formed Controllably in Viscous Melts by Smart Blending / Chaotic Advection' . A goal of the workshop was to identify research directions related to manufacturing technologies for the production of nano-scale materials and products.   Polymer blends and composites that are produced by smart blending can have feature sizes well below 100 nanometers and molecular organization may be promoted in some cases.   An especially novel aspect is that materials with a wide variety of internal structures are producible in large quantities.  For example, they can be extruded in various forms in continuous lengths.

§Professor Hassan Aref of the U. of Illinois/Urbana has recently published  a paper titled, 'The Development of Chaotic Advection' [Physics of Fluids, Vol. 14, pp. 1315-1323, 2002].  Professor Aref is credited with first articulating concepts of chaotic advection in the early 1980s. He was awarded the Otto Laporte Award by the American Physical Society in December 2000 for the development of chaotic advection. His award citation stated, "For his pioneering contributions to the study of chaotic motion in fluids, scientific computation, and vortex dynamics, and most notably for the development of the concept of chaotic advection." For more information,   http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?name=Hassan%20Aref&year=2000 .