From: me_seminarseries-request@elist.tufts.edu on behalf of Mechanical Engineering Department Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 12:39 To: me_seminarseries@elist.tufts.edu Subject: Thesis Defense for Ashley Turza Thursday, April 20 at 1:30 PM in the Fishbowl (Anderson Rm 216) Attachments: 0. Thesis Defense Announcement - Turza, Ashley.docx Hi All, Attached is the announcement for Ashley Turza's thesis defense Thursday, April 20 at 1:30 PM in the Fishbowl in Anderson 216. The title of her thesis is "A Low-cost Testbed for Mechanical Testing of Structural Elements of Soft Systems." Abstract: This thesis describes the design of a low-cost system of tests to characterize mechanical properties in soft structures. More specifically, we focus on testing mesoscale structural components (which we call structural volume elements) from which a larger structure might be constructed. The mechanical properties of a structural volume element are determined both by its material properties and by its geometry. The testkit provides an easy-to-implement means of characterizing force-displacement relationships (e.g. compression, shear, bending) for nonlinear materials in the presence of large deformations and buckling instabilities. The testkit includes both hardware and software components. The purpose of the hardware is to apply loading conditions to a small structural volume element, approximately 1 cm3 in volume. The purpose of the software is to measure the displacements that occur as loading changes. Thank you very much. ME Department Staff