Fall 2022 ChBE seminar series: Cameron Abrams

 

Thermosetting polymers comprise a wide variety of monomer constituents and polymerization chemis­tries that in principle provide the degrees of freedom necessary to tailor these materials to a broad range of ap­plications, from structural composites, coatings and barrier materials, ballistic shielding, and even solid rocket fuels. In this talk, I will trace my group's history in using molecular dynamics simulations to investigate conceptual links among molecular architectures, intermolecular interactions, and network structures and how they deter­mine themomechanical properties of polymerized materials that these applications demand. Highlights in this history include the discovery of the links between crosslink arrangements and protovoid-based toughening; toughening using partially reacted substructures; long-time-scale material response through time-temperature superposition; and rationalizing improvements over petrochemically derived monomers using novel bio-based subunits. A consistent theme will be demonstration of how close collaboration with experimental groups allows for simulation predictions to be tested. I will conclude with a presentation of our group's software package, HT­PolyNet, that represents the first open-source, end-to-end generator of all-atom models of network-polymerized monomer mixtures based only on monomer structures, which should accelerate the community's use of MD sim­ulation to investigate thermosetting polymers. 

 

Dr. Cameron F. Abrams is the Bartlett '81 - Barry '81 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Drexel University, where he has served on the faculty since 2002 and as Department Head since 201Z Abrams' re­search expertise lies in advancing modern molecular simulation methods with applications in protein science, drug discovery, complex fluids, and high-performance materials. He is the recipient of an ONR Young Investiga­tor Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and the AIChE Computational and Molecular Sciences Forum Impact Award. He received a BS in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1995 and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000. He trained as a postdoc for two years in the Theory Group at the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, before joining Drexel.