Research Thomas Cochard Hydraulic fracture dynamics Hydraulic fracking of shale reservoirs is a process in which a highly pressurized fluid is injected into a rock formation, inducing fractures that create a connected path between the pores filled with hydrocarbons. Understanding the dynamics of those fractures is challenging as they grow quickly in opaque high strength…
Public lectures
Research Public lectures On Dec 16, 2020, Dave gave a talk at EML Webinar on Snap, Speckle and Spot: Sight and Sound of Hydraulic Fracture. EML Webinar on Snap, Speckle and Spot: Sight and Sound of Hydraulic Fracture By Professor Weits on December 16, 2020 Advanced Colloids Experiment-Microscopy-2 (ACE-M-2) By Dr. Peter J. Lu & ACE-M2R…
Microfluidics for biology
Research Microfluidics for biology We develop and use microfluidic devices to explore questions in biology. Often this involves making picoliter to nanoliter aqueous droplets in an inert, immiscible, carrier fluid. Surfactant keeps each droplet separate from every other droplet, so we can treat each as a reaction vessel containing an independent experiment. This gives us…
Microfluidics for material production
Research Microfluidics for material production We develop methods to create new functional materials using microfluidic devices. These devices provide capabilities for very precisely mixing fluids to form new materials. All the structures are based on drops which can both encapsulate active materials and serve as templates on which to build new structures. These have interesting…
Microfluidics
Research Microfluidics We have two areas of focus in our microfluidics effort. The first is an effort to use microfluidic devices to create new materials. The second is an effort to use drops in microfluidic devices as reaction vessels for biology. Microfluidics for material production We develop methods to create new functional materials using microfluidic…
Flow in Porous Media
Research Academic collaborations Prof L. Xiao CUPB, Beijing Havard SEAS- CUPB Prof M. De Hoop Rice U. Prof T. Padzek Kaust Other groups at Harvard Prof S. Rubinstein, Prof V. Manoharan, Prof J. Rice Industrial collaborations Schlumberger: Y. Song, J. Elkhoury, S. C. Mahavadi, R. Prioul Flow in Porous Media A part of our research is dedicated to porous media…
Biophysics
Research Biophysics We use our expertise and our experimental tools to investigate the properties of biological materials and to study the behavior of cells. Much of our focus is on developing an understanding of the mechanical properties of biopolymer networks, formed by reconstituting proteins into gelled networks. These include networks of actin, microtubules, intermediate filaments,…
Soft Materials
Research Soft Materials This research focuses on the properties of common soft materials. We study colloids, emulsions, drops, polymers and gels. Our focus is on understanding the structure of these materials and how this controls their dynamics and properties. We make extensive use of the experimental tools of a soft matter physics lab, including optical…