Nanoparticle Absorption
Assistant Professor Szu-Wen Wang
Not all beaches are eroding, but many are - enough to warrant spending large sums of money to add sand to Southern California's deteriorating coastlines.
In a new study recently published in the Advanced Materials journal, engineers from the University of California, Irvine and the Georgia Institute of Technology have explained the development of a new range of mechanical metamaterials that prevent failure by delocalizing the deformations.
University officials in Irvine announced earlier this month that researchers have received a $675,000 grant from NASA that will be divided between both universities. Approximately $350,000 will go to the Irvine campus for what is expected to be a three-year project to support graduate students, researchers and the cost of some of the equipment used in the study. UCI professor of civil and environmental engineering Brett Sanders said the project aims to use satellites to examine the distribution — height, width and volume — of sand on local beaches.