David
RODNEY

Contact details

Taught academic discipline(s)

 ILM in the team: Modelling of Condensed Matter and Interfaces and SOPRANO,
David RODNEY was appointed professor in 2013 at ILMModélisation de la Matière Condensée et des Interfaces and SOPRANO, he benefited from a Chair of  Labex iMUST

Research topics

Research topics: Physical modelling of deformation in condensed matter

Keywords: multi-scale modeling, molecular dynamics acceleration method, crystal plasticity, mechanics of disordered media, mechanics of fibrous structured media

Activities / Resume

Mechanics of entangled media

The need to optimize structural materials is driving the development of new structures and architectures. David Rodney explores in collaboration with colleagues from Grenoble (Laurent Orgéas, Sabine Rolland du Roscoat) the mechanical properties of a new architecture, made up of a single thread tangled with itself. Samples have been produced from a variety of materials with different properties: a biocompatible shape memory alloy wire, with potential applications in the biomedical field, an extremely deformable copper wire for electrical circuits, and a polymer wire (a simple fishing wire) that deforms elastically (see examples in Fig. 1).


Fig 1

A discrete simulation code has also been developed to gain access to the elementary deformation processes of these media.

These media have original mechanical properties, which are largely due to their intermediate architecture between a discrete medium (the fibre segments are not glued together and may rearrange during deformation, as do grains of sand) and a continuous medium (a single fibre is used, implying the occurrence of high internal stresses). Thus, these structures deform reversibly up to deformation rates of up to 30% if the fibre deforms itself elastically. In addition, these media have a unique property to date of reversible expansion in tension and compression.

Because of their numerous and original perspectives, this work was the subject of a recent article in the journal Nature Materials.

Bibliography :
1. Rodney D., Gadot B., Riu Martinez O., Rolland du Roscoat S., Orgéas L. ‘Reversible dilatancy in entangled single-wire materials’ Nature Materials 15 (2015) 72-77.
2. Clouet E., Caillard D., Chaari N., Onimus F., Rodney D. ‘Dislocation locking versus easy glide in titanium and zirconium’ Nature Materials 14 (2015) 931-936.
3. Koziatek P., Barrat J. L., Rodney D. ‘Short- and medium-range orders in as-quenched and deformed SiO2 glasses: an atomistic study’ Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 414 (2015) 7-15.
4. Chaari N., Clouet E., Rodney D. ‘First-Principles Study of Secondary Slip in Zirconium’ Physical Review Letters 112 (2014) 075504.1-5.
5. Ventelon L., Willaime F., Clouet E., Rodney D. ‘Ab initio investigation of the Peierls potential of screw dislocations in bcc Fe and W’ Acta Materialia 61 (2013) 3973-3985.


About us :

David Rodney is a graduate of the Ecole Paris Mines and the University of Orsay. After a PhD at the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble, he became a lecturer at the SIMaP lab of the INP Grenoble. From 2008 to 2009, he was a visiting professor at MIT in the Material Science and Engineering department. IUF junior in 2009, he joined UCB Lyon 1 and ILM in the following teams Modélisation de la Matière Condensée et des Interfaces et SOPRANO.

 He works on the simulation of the mechanical properties of solids.

Additional informations