M3 Lab

Material is one of most important factors in mechanical engineering and design. In nature, materials have various length scales from macroscale (device level) to microscale (flaw level), and to atomic scale (fundamental level). Traditionally, different physics and mathematical models have been developed separately to understand the underlying fundamentals for each length scale problems. However, in reality, there are no distinct boundaries between different length scales, space is continuous, suggesting physics and models are supposed to have smooth transition amongst each other. In the research lab of M3 (Multiscale Modeling of Materials) led by Dr. Wenwu Xu, we are developing multiphysics and multiscale modeling of materials combining different length scale models. We are especially interested in multiscale modeling of nanoscale materials. This is because nanomaterial systems have the length scale spanning naturally from the atomic scale to macroscale: the atomic-/nano-sized unit structures assembled into the micro-/macro-sized materials – a perfect system for multiscale modeling studies.