Micromechanics and Data Science

Micromechanics investigates the mechanical properties of the microstructural elements that are the microscopic building blocks of all materials. The mechanical understanding of these building blocks allows to fundamentally and thoroughly characterize the elastic and plastic deformation, crack initiation and propagation as well as accumulation mechanisms such as fatigue. This research group focuses on nanoindentation and microtribology techniques to quantify the deformation behavior for a number of materials ranging from ceramics via metals to polymeres. One focus area is the investigation of how green hydrogen influences the mechanical material properties at the microscale by employing custom setups and sample geometries for these advanced challenges of materials science.

Secondly, this group develops modern data science solutions for experimental materials scientists. The core element of such solutions are Electronic Lab-Notebooks (ELN) which allow to efficiently retrieve, share and search research knowledge. We develop an ELN that focuses of local usage and allows the scientist to efficiently build the scientific knowledge. This ELN ties into the work on proprietary binary file formats that are omnipresent in experimental science and obstruct the scientist. We develop software to decipher these file formats and allow the scientist to take full advantage of all data and metadata.