Abstract

Materials engineers face various tasks that require multidisciplinary approaches to solve specific problems. While every task of a materials engineer must prioritize the performance of the overall system while considering economic perspective, problem solving requires deep understanding of chemistry, physics, and other engineering disciplines including mechanical, electrical, and chemical. My research group solves problems related to soft materials with high toughness, such as gels, elastomers, and textiles. These materials can accommodate extensive dimensional changes during operation, and thus are often employed in the wearable healthcare devices and medical instruments, along with many other engineering applications. In this presentation, I tell four stories to showcase how material engineers design and fabricate:

1. Regulating blood flow in ex-vivo heart perfusion device for heart transplant surgery
2. Embedded pressure sensors for smart prosthesis to substitute jaw after mandibulectomy
3. Skin-mountable e-textile patches for sEMG and EEG monitoring
4. E-skin with an embedded tactile and temperature sensor array

Bio

Hyun-Joong Chung is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta. He leads an interdisciplinary research program on understanding physical and chemical properties of elastomeric materials, and then on translating the understanding to engineering applications in various fields. His early career contributions include key studies on the role of jamming nanoparticles in phase-separating polymer blends. After spending 4- years in information display industry to develop zinc-oxide-based thin film transistors for AMOLEDs, he came back to academia to apply the device knowledge in stretchable bioelectronics. His recent contributions are on studying various stretchable soft materials, including gels, elastomers, and textiles with or without functional additives and reinforcements for applications in biomedical and energy devices.