February 13, 2024 UW-Madison carbon nanotube studies featured on journal covers Written By: Caitlin Scott Departments: Mechanical Engineering Categories: Faculty|Research Two publications on research advances out of the lab of Assistant Professor Ramathasan Thevamaran were recently featured on journal covers. Assistant Professors Thevamaran and Thompson ‘Superior thermal transport properties of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes tailored through mesoscale architectures‘ was published in issue 216, with the cover image appearing on issue 218, of Carbon and includes Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professors Ramathasan Thevamaran and Dakotah Thompson as authors, along with Thevamaran lab postdoctoral research associates Komal Chawla and Jizhe Cai. The publication shares that thermal transport properties play a critical role in the performance of lightweight foams used as shock-absorbing layers in helmets, sports gear, and electronic packaging. They report superior tailored thermal properties achieved at lightweight in vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) foams by introducing mesoscale hexagonally close-packed cylindrical architecture. The journal Carbon is an international multidisciplinary forum for communicating scientific advances in the field of carbon materials, including low-dimensional carbon-based nanostructures. Credit for Carbon cover illustration: College of Engineering graphic designer Xin (Zoe) Zou. Experimental Mechanics selected another publication for the cover of their February 6, 2024 issue. ‘Mitigating Oblique Impacts by Unraveling of Buckled Carbon Nanotubes in Helmet Liners‘ authors are Thevamaran lab PhD student Bhanugoban Maheswaran, postdoctoral research associate Komal Chawla and Prof. Ramathasan Thevamaran. In this article, they demonstrate the ability of vertically aligned carbon nanotube to accommodate large shear strains at lower shear stress levels under large compression-shear loadings. The authors propose a model to predict the compression-shear response at different precompressive strains and use this model to develop a deformation modality diagram that categorizes the dominant deformation mechanisms at different loads along different loading angles. Credit for Experimental Mechanics illustration: Bhanugoban Maheswaran (Thevamaran Lab) These studies were supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under PANTHER award number N000142112044 and N000142112916 through Dr. Timothy Bentley. Full Carbon cover image: A geometric confinement induced nanostructure and morphology evolutions in architected vertically aligned carbon nanotubes lead to higher intrinsic thermal conductivity and lower intrinsic area-specific thermal resistance, enabling low density thermal interface materials. Learn more about Thevamaran’s research and work at UW-Madison via his faculty video. UW Mechanical Engineering – Ramathasan Thevamaran Close Video