HEMI Seminar: Ryan Harne, “Mechanical Materials that Sense, Think, React, and Learn”

Mechanical Materials that Sense, Think, React, and Learn

Ryan Harne, James F. Will Career Development Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University

ATTEND IN PERSON: JHU Homewood campus, Malone G33/35

To date, engineers and scientists have created materials that sense stimuli or use stimuli as inputs to react. Here, we will share how to enable materials to think about and learn about the stimuli to which they are subjected. These functions are grounded on a new interface among Boolean mathematics, mechanologic, and electrical switching circuit networks. We show how this new platform of mechanical computing is scalable in computing complexity and in computing density. The capabilities are exemplified by a polymer-based mechanical material that can perform advanced computing operations and calculations like a microprocessor, only without the microprocessor. We show one way for the mechanical material to learn about its past inputs so that it can compute new outputs in the future, such as for autonomous feedback for reactive behavior. These findings are important for sake of empowering future classes of engineered living materials and systems.

Ryan L. Harne is the James F. Will Career Development Associate Professor in the Department ofMechanical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University where he directs the Laboratory ofSound and Vibration Research. Ryan earned his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering atVirginia Tech in 2012. From 2012 to 2015, Ryan was a Research Fellow at the University ofMichigan, and was an Assistant and Associate Professor from 2015 to 2020 at The Ohio StateUniversity. His research expertise spans acoustics, mechanics, dynamics, vibrations, materials, electronics, applied math, and manufacturing. He has led research efforts yielding over 90publications, 2 patents, 1 book, over 25 student awards, and a startup company. Ryan is the recipient of the 2020 ASME CD Mote Jr. Early Career Award, the 2019 ASME Gary Anderson EarlyAchievement Award, the 2018 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2017 ASMEBest Paper Award in Structures and Structural Dynamics, the 2016 ASME Haythornthwaite Young Investigator Award, and the 2011 ASA Royster Award. He currently serves as an AssociateEditor for ASME Journal of Vibrations and Acoustics and for The Journal of the AcousticalSociety of America, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics.