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June 23, 2019
Each year, a plethora of mechanical engineering freshers graduate from top engineering colleges, flashing their hard-earned mechanical engineering degrees. Mechanical engineering is a fairly competitive field and students need to be on their toes to grab the best opportunities.
At work, mechanical engineering freshers are expected to know about mechanics, thermodynamics, robotics, kinematics, structural analysis, and fluid mechanics with their applications in Automotive Sector, Power Sector, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Sector, Aerospace.
You can apply to the top 20 most respected, core companies hiring freshers for mechanical engineering jobs in India. In this post, we take you through a list of companies that are pioneers in the mechanical industry and can prove to be a major career booster for all mechanical engineering freshers.

Top Private Companies For Mechanical Engineering Freshers


TATA Group

One of the biggest and most successful business groups in India, TATA Group holds the top position in the mechanical engineering industry. Mechanical engineering freshers can apply for jobs in Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Power and Tata Chemicals.

Thermax

It is an Indian energy and environmental engineering firm well-known for boilers and toughened glass. Mechanical engineering freshers can find many recruitment opportunities in design, electronics and IT.

Larsen & Toubro

The famous L&T group is every engineering student’s dream come true. There are plenty of job opportunities for mechanical engineering freshers in the various operational areas of L&T; such as, L&T Technology Services, L&T Solar, L&T Infotech and EWAC Alloys Limited.

The Godrej Group

Leaders of refrigerators and air conditioners, The Godrej Group is ideal for freshers from mechanical engineers.  Mechanical engineers can find recruitment opportunities in operations of electrical and electronics division and precision engineering division.

Ashok Leyland

The most renowned automobile manufacturing company in India offers numerous jobs for mechanical engineering freshers. The company allows freshers to work in manufacturing, IT, product design and electronics etc.

Kirloskar

An Indian conglomerate in Pune that manufactures Engines and Parts, Compressors, Valves, Pumps, Agricultural Products, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning related things for which mechanical engineers are hired.

General Motors

General Motors is the 5th largest exporter of vehicles in India. GM India hires freshers from mechanical engineering colleges for operations in manufacturing, product design, IT, and production.

ThyssenKrupp

It is located in Hyderabad with branches in 7 states of India operating in areas of Component Technology, Material Services, Steel, Plant Technology etc.

Siemens

Siemens is a multi-national company with 19 factories in India alone and operations spread across the world. They work in areas of consumer products, healthcare, energy, building technologies, etc. for which they recruit mechanical engineers freshers and experienced ones too.

Mahindra & Mahindra

The company works in automotive, farm equipment, Information Technology, and other related businesses. It is ideal for those mechanical engineering freshers looking for jobs.

Apply for these jobs through AMCAT here. 


Top Government Companies for Mechanical Engineering Freshers


BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited)

BHEL is India’s largest engineering and manufacturing company of its kind engaged in the design, engineering, manufacture, construction, testing, commissioning. Mechanical engineering freshers can apply here by passing in GATE Exam.

HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited)

One of the Fortune 500 companies luckily offers entry-level jobs to mechanical engineers. You can get through this one with an exceptionally great sore in GATE Exam.

DRDO (Defense Research & Development Organization)

DRDO works in areas of military technology which includes aeronautics, armaments, combat vehicles, electronics, instrumentation engineering systems, missiles, materials, naval systems, advanced computing, simulation and life sciences.

IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Limited)

A mechanical engineer can be posted in any of the three divisions – Refineries, Marketing and Pipeline. IOCL is India’s largest provider of oil, gas, petrochemicals and alternative energy sources.

NHPC (National Hydroelectric Power Corporation)

NHPC plans, promotes and integrates development of hydroelectric power in India. They have various job opportunities available for mechanical engineering freshers in all areas of operation.

GAIL (Gas Authority of India Limited)

GAIL India is the largest state-owned natural gas and oil distribution company in India. Headquartered in Delhi, GAIL is the best PSU to start your career. As a fresher, you can be offered jobs like construction engineer, manufacturing engineer, design engineer etc.

COAL India

Coal India is a big shot PSU with a hat full of feathers that sing stories of success. Joining a star company like that can really shape you career for good. The freshers from mechanical engineering colleges can apply for jobs like maintenance engineers for Heavy Earth Moving Machines. This job role allows great exposure to Hydraulics, Engines, Transmissions, Electric Motors and Generators, Electrical circuits, Compressors, Gear Boxes etc.

ONGC (Oil & Natural Gas Corporation)

ONGC is an Indian multinational which is responsible for production and seamless distribution of oil and natural gas in India. A mechanical engineer fresher can be placed in two areas – Engineering services where you are expected to deal with Design development, execution or project coordination and supervision; or Drilling & Production where you carry out maintenance jobs.

SCI (Shipping Corporation of India)

The SCI takes freshers from mechanical engineering colleges for trainee programs. The SCI enrolls students for GME Courses in various maritime institutes like Cochin Shipyard, LBS, mazagoan docks etc. Then the students are hired to work as Trainee Marine Engineer.

ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization)

ISRO is a government-run space research agency of India. The mechanical engineering freshers have numerous employment opportunities in ISRO because of the large scale of business operations. A mechanical engineer undergoes two-month training where you get to specialize in your area of interest like Spacecraft, Launch Vehicles, and Applications etc.


All the companies listed above are top-shots in their area of operations. You can start out by applying individually or excelling in the campus placements.

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June 22, 2019
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Every year, a stream of mechanical engineers’ graduate from their bachelor’s degree and do their best to get a job that would pay them the highest mechanical engineer salary for their services. The reason is clear – mechanical engineering is one of the most in-demand engineering disciplines and in highly in demand within several industries in all countries around the world. 
In addition to that, it is one of the highest paid fields. The more training a mechanical engineer takes up, the more he or she can expect their annual salary to go up. And the more skilled a mechanical engineer is, the more he or she can negotiate their pay.

The Top 3 Highest Mechanical Engineer Salary are:

1.Mechanical Design Engineer

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The primary roles and responsibilities of a Mechanical Design Engineer include researching, testing, designing, manufacturing, and developing machines, engines, and tools or devices. A Mechanical Design Engineer plays a major role in the production process because he or she takes charge of the machines used to run the project smoothly and to its optimum level.
In other aspects, a Mechanical Design Engineer can be considered a process or project manager. He or she looks after the company’s resources, including its workforce and equipment suppliers. He may also be tasked with managing company budgets as well as maintaining materials and keeping specifications of designs up to date.
If you are good at drafting parts and designing equipment layouts, then you are fit to be one of the Mechanical Design Engineers paid well.
In the US, the highest mechanical design engineer salary is $93,000.

2. Senior Mechanical Engineer

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A Senior Mechanical Engineer works in close cooperation with the upper management. He collaborates with the Business Development department, the Engineering department, and the Operations, Quality Control and Manufacturing department. Depending on the company needs, a Senior Mechanical Engineer may be responsible for many aspects of project management.
The primary roles and responsibilities of a Senior Mechanical Engineer are to ensure that all regulations and procedures in the workplace, including environmental, safety and security policies, are adhered to by everyone, including himself and his direct reports. He is to be the adviser who makes recommendations when there is a need for human resources. That means he is an active participant in the recruitment and hiring of new employees.
Aside from his role in the human resources department, he is also in charge of investigating and procuring information that is needed for design and development. He is to be ready to troubleshoot when system failures or project failures are experienced in the management. He works with lots of data, gathers tons of information and can analyze and interpret new machine or system data in real-time as it’s acquired.
As a project manager, the Senior Mechanical Engineer is responsible for making sure all projects are done according to plan and within the time allotted. He will also help out as the coordinator and consultant to other team members for better design and development outcomes.
Overall, the Senior Mechanical Engineer is a project leader and coordinator between staff members and the upper management. According to the report from 2016, the Highest Senior Mechanical Engineer salary, which includes salary, bonus, and profit sharing, goes up to $133,000. Even the average, median pay rate is great so this is definitely something to look forward. 

3. Senior Mechanical Process Engineer

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To become a Senior Mechanical Process Engineer, you must first hold a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical or Chemical Engineering. Some companies require 10+ years of experience while others accept less experienced engineers and will provide them adequate training and chances to develop their engineering skills.
As a Senior Mechanical Process Engineer, the chosen candidate must perform the role of a project manager for medium side projects as well as large-scale ones. A Senior Mechanical Process Engineer is to conduct business as a project engineer, too, in critical projects. He is expected to prepare and evaluate design sheets, technical specifications, 2D & 3D drawings, and even technical and financial reports. Those who are interested in this job should be able to work with various software and technology. 
The Senior Mechanical Process Engineer is also tasked with overseeing project bids and supplier proposals as well as making sure field and market investigations are delivered accurately. He is responsible of managing studies and detailed reports.
The roles and responsibilities of a Senior Mechanical Process Engineer vary from one company to another, but the highest national mechanical engineer salary for such positions went up to $137,631 as of 2016 data (with full benefits). 
These are my top three jobs that pay good money for Mechanical Engineers. There are other positions as well, but these three are your basic career guide to getting an idea of what companies want their engineers to be doing and what results they expect these mechanical engineers to generate.
Salary of a mechanical engineer also depends on a state; according to statistics, Alaska has the best-paid jobs followed by District of Colombia. You can also make a nice career in Texas and California. 

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June 22, 2019
Google has been testing its prototype car on US roads – it's yet to be trialled in the UK – and revealed some details about how its self-driving cars work. Here we explain some of the technology.
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Driverless cars are here already, sort of…
Much of the autonomous technology used in Google's self-driving cars is already found on the road.
You may have seen commercials advertising the Volkswagen Polo's automatic braking or the Ford Focus' automatic parallel parking, which both build on the increasingly common use of proximity sensors to aid parking.
Combine these sensors with the automated-steering technology used for parking, throw in the seemingly old-hat technology that is cruise control and you have the loose framework for a self-driving car.

How many sensors does the car have, and what do they do?

Google’s driverless car has eight sensors.
The most noticeable is the rotating roof-top LiDAR – a camera that uses an array of 32 or 64 lasers to measure the distance to objects to build up a 3D map at a range of 200m, letting the car "see" hazards.
The car also sports another set of “eyes”, a standard camera that points through the windscreen. This also looks for nearby hazards - such as pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists – and reads road signs and detects traffic lights.
Speaking of other motorists, bumper-mounted radar, which is already used in intelligent cruise control, keeps track of vehicles in front of and behind the car.
Externally, the car has a rear-mounted aerial that receives geolocation information from GPS satellites, and an ultrasonic sensor on one of the rear wheels that monitors the car’s movements.
Internally, the car has altimeters, gyroscopes and a tachometer (a rev counter) to give finer measurements on the car’s position. These combine to give the car the highly accurate data needed to operate safely.

How Google’s driverless car works

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No single sensor is responsible for making Google's self-driving car work. GPS data, for example, is not accurate enough to keep the car on the road, let alone in the correct lane. Instead, the driverless car uses data from all eight sensors, interpreted by Google's software, to keep you safe and get you from A to B.
The data that Google's software receives is used to accurately identify other road users and their behaviour patterns, plus commonly used highway signals.
For example, the Google car can successfully identify a bike and understand that if the cyclist extends an arm, they intend to make a manoeuvre. The car then knows to slow down and give the bike enough space to operate safely.
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How Google's self-driving cars are tested

Google’s self-driving vehicles – of which it has at least ten – are currently being tested on private tracks and, since 2010, public roads.
The car always has two people inside: a qualified driver with an unblemished record sits in the driver’s seat, to take control of the car by either turning the wheel or pressing the brake, while a Google engineer sits in the passenger seat to monitor the behaviour of the software.
Four US states have passed laws allowing driverless cars on the road, and Google has taken full advantage, testing its car on motorways and suburban streets.
Steve Mahan, a California resident who is blind, was involved in a showcase test drive, which saw the car chauffeur him from his house around town, including a visit to a drive-through restaurant.
However, it’s not quite a case of telling your car where you want to go, sitting back and relaxing.

Are driverless cars safe?

This is one of the questions that continues to pop up in the driverless car debate: is it safe to hand over control of a vehicle to a robot?
Supporters of self-driving car technologies are quick to point to statistics that highlight how unsafe the roads are at the hands of non-autonomous cars – in 2013, 1,730 people were killed as a result of car accidents in the UK alone, and a further 185,540 people were injured, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The worldwide figures are just as scary, with road deaths claiming 1.2 million lives last year. Google claims that more than 90% of these fatalities were due to human error.
In April, Google announced that its driverless cars had covered over 700,000 miles (1.12 million kilometres) without a recorded accident caused by one of its vehicles - one was hit from behind, but the other driver was at fault.
While this is an incredibly small figure compared with how many miles UK motorists cover in a year – in 2010, car insurance company Admiral suggested the number could be near 267 billion miles – the fact that autonomous Google cars are still accident-free remains encouraging.

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June 22, 2019 1
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The space agency plans to open the floating lab up to private astronauts as well as commercial companies, it said. That could include film crews, for instance, who could be allowed to make ads or whole films in space.
The first space tourists could head up to the ISS in 2020, Nasa said.
The plans allow private companies to lease out time on Nasa's part of the International Space Station. They will also be able to borrow its own astronauts for their commercial work and take their technologies to the floating lab – though they are expected to pay heavy prices for the opportunity.
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Nasa has long been resistant to the idea of commercialising its operations, including the ISS. Previously, anything that was taken up to the ISS needed to have an educational or research component.
But in recent times it has become more open to the idea, with administrator Jim Bridenstine even suggesting that the US could allow companies to buy the naming rights to rockets, for example.
The missions will be part of Nasa's broader plan to allow commercial companies into space. It hopes that private industry can develop the space technologies of the future and help with its plans to return to the Moon in 2024, taking the first ever woman and the first person in decades.
Nasa hopes that the missions help test out and encourage future private missions into space, which could provide funding for further exploration in years to come.
The space agency will keep using the ISS as a place for research and testing in low-Earth orbit, doing work that will help contribute towards its plans to head to the Moon, it said. But it will also work with the private sector to allow it to use the ISS to test technologies, train astronauts and encourage the development of the "space economy", it said.
Nasa will also help develop a whole host of private spacecraft, floating around above the Earth, that can serve as a home for people, Nasa said.
The tourists – whom Nasa refers to as "private astronauts" – will go on missions of up to 30 days. While there they will perform duties that can include commercial and marketing activity, which will be limited by Nasa's rules.
There can be two of those short duration missions each year, Nasa said. They will go on privately funded, dedicated spaceflights that will use a US spacecraft, developed under Nasa's plan to encourage the private sector to build new spacecraft.
The private astronauts will still have to pass Nasa's medical standards and the training procedures to ensure they are safe on board the ISS.
Eventually, private companies could use floating habitations like the ISS to stop off at on their way to further destinations deeper in the solar system.
Nasa's decision to open up the space station comes as a variety of companies start to offer the possibility of space tourism in the future.

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June 02, 2019
The first experimental robot drone that flies like a typical quadcopter, drives on tough terrain and squeezes into tight spaces using the same motors, has been developed by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers.
The hybrid FSTAR (flying sprawl-tuned autonomous robot) will be introduced at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2019 in Montreal on May 21. It was developed in the BGU Bio-Inspired and Medical Robotics Lab by Prof. David Zarrouk, senior lecturer in BGU's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and head of the Bio-Inspired and Medical Robotics Lab and his graduate student, Nir Meiri.
FSTAR can fly over obstacles or run underneath them. The sprawl, which adjusts from a flat configuration to 55 degrees allows the robot to transform its movement from a flying quadcopter to a car-like robot. It also adjusts its width to crawl or run on flat surfaces, climb over large obstacles and up closely-spaced walls, or squeeze through a tunnel, pipe or narrow gaps.
It can run on the ground at a speed of up to eight feet per second (2.6 m/s). That combined with low energy consumption using the same motors makes FSTAR ideal for a broad range of applications that may require longer work time.
Possible commercial uses are package deliveries since it can quickly fly to a target zone and then drive using its wheels safely and quietly to reach the recipient's doorstep. FSTAR can also be used for search and rescue applications as it can fly over various obstacles and crawl between or underneath cracks where a regular drone cannot fly. The robot can also be used in agriculture, maintenance, cleaning, filming, and entertainment, as well as law enforcement and anti-terrorist applications.
"We plan to develop larger and smaller versions to expand this family of sprawling robots for different applications, as well as algorithms that will help exploit speed and cost of transport for these flying/driving robots." Dr. Zarrouk says.

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June 02, 2019
Tissue engineering could transform medicine. Instead of waiting for our bodies to regrow or repair damage after an injury or disease, scientists could grow complex, fully functional tissues in a laboratory for transplantation into patients.
Proteins are key to this future. In our bodies, protein signals tell cells where to go, when to divide and what to do. In the lab, scientists use proteins for the same purpose -- placing proteins at specific points on or within engineered scaffolds, and then using these protein signals to control cell migration, division and differentiation.
But proteins in these settings are also fragile. To get them to stick to the scaffolds, researchers have traditionally modified proteins using chemistries that kill off more than 90% of their function. In a paper published May 20 in the journal Nature Materials, a team of researchers from the University of Washington unveiled a new strategy to keep proteins intact and functional by modifying them at a specific point so that they can be chemically tethered to the scaffold using light. Since the tether can also be cut by laser light, this method can create evolving patterns of signal proteins throughout a biomaterial scaffold to grow tissues made up of different types of cells.
"Proteins are the ultimate communicators of biological information," said corresponding author Cole DeForest, a UW assistant professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering, as well as an affiliate investigator with the UW Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine. "They drive virtually all changes in cell function -- differentiation, movement, growth, death."
For that reason, scientists have long employed proteins to control cell growth and differentiation in tissue engineering.
"But the chemistries most commonly used by the community to bind proteins to materials, including scaffolds for tissue engineering, destroy the overwhelming majority of their function," said DeForest, who is also a faculty member in the UW Molecular & Engineering Sciences Institute. "Historically, researchers have tried to compensate for this by simply overloading the scaffold with proteins, knowing that most of them will be inactive. Here, we've come up with a generalizable way to functionalize biomaterials reversibly with proteins while preserving their full activity."
Their approach uses an enzyme called sortase, which is found in many bacteria, to add a short synthetic peptide to each signal protein at a specific location: the C-terminus, a site present on every protein. The team designs that peptide such that it will tether the signal protein to specific locations within a fluid-filled biomaterial scaffold common in tissue engineering, known as a hydrogel.
Targeting a single site on the signal protein is what sets the UW team's approach apart. Other methods modify signal proteins by attaching chemical groups to random locations, which often disrupts the protein's function. Modifying just the C-terminus of the protein is much less likely to disrupt its function, according to DeForest. The team tested the approach on more than half a dozen different types of proteins. Results show that modifying the C-terminus has no significant effect on protein function, and successfully tethers the proteins throughout the hydrogel.
Their approach is analogous to hanging a piece of framed art on a wall. Instead of hammering nails randomly through the glass, canvas and frame, they string a single wire across the back of each frame to hang it on the wall.
In addition, the tethers can be cut by exposure to focused laser light, causing "photorelease" of the proteins. Using this scientific light saber allows the researchers to load a hydrogel with many different types of protein signals, and then expose the hydrogel to laser light to untether proteins from certain sections of the hydrogel. By selectively exposing only portions of the materials to the laser light, the team controlled where protein signals would stay tethered to the hydrogel.
Untethering proteins is useful in hydrogels because cells could then take up those signals, bringing them into the cell's interior where they can affect processes like gene expression.
DeForest's team tested the photorelease process using a hydrogel loaded with epidermal growth factor, a type of protein signal. They introduced a human cell line into the hydrogel and observed the growth factors binding to the cell membranes. The team used a beam of laser light to untether the protein signals on one side of an individual cell, but not the other side. On the tethered side of the cell, the proteins stayed on the outside of the cell since they were still stuck to the hydrogel. On the untethered side, the protein signals were internalized by the cell.
"Based on how we target the laser light, we can ensure that different cells -- or even different parts of single cells -- are receiving different environmental signals," said DeForest.
This unique level of precision within a single cell not only helps with tissue engineering, but with basic research in cell biology, added DeForest. Researchers could use this platform to study how living cells respond to multiple combinations of protein signals, for example. This line of research would help scientists understand how protein signals work together to control cell differentiation, heal diseased tissue and promote human development.
"This platform allows us to precisely control when and where bioactive protein signals are presented to cells within materials," said DeForest. "That opens the door to many exciting applications in tissue engineering and therapeutics research."

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June 02, 2019
Toothpaste on brush.
Credit: © cristovao31 / Adobe Stock
From the toothpaste you squeeze on your brush first thing in the morning to the yogurt you slurp down to the fabric softener that keeps your pajamas cozy and soft, gels are ubiquitous in consumer products, foods, and in industrial applications, too.
However, until now, scientists have been unable to explain the microscopic structures within gels that impart their elasticity, or springiness, nor how those structures form. A team of scientists from the University of Delaware, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University and University of Michigan discovered that the elasticity of gels arises from the packing of clusters of particles in the gels, which the group dubbed locally glassy clusters.
This research, described in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, could help people engineer better materials and products at the microscale. This insight could help companies in the consumer products, biotechnology, and agriculture sectors and beyond.
Many companies formulate and sell gel products, and sometimes, the stiffness of gels changes as a result of instability. Eric Furst, professor and chair of UD's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and one of the paper's corresponding authors, keeps an old bottle of fabric softener on a shelf in his office and uses it to demonstrate what happens when gels separate or "collapse." The product is supposed to be easy to pour, but when it goes bad, it becomes gloppy and unappealing.
"Our results provide insight into how to engineer cluster size distribution to control stiffness, flow, and stability of gel materials," said Furst.
The first author of the new paper is Kathryn A. Whitaker, who received a doctoral degree in chemical engineering from UD in 2015 and is now a senior research engineer at Dow in Midland, Michigan.
Investigating gels
Gels are semi-solid materials that flow like liquids but contain solid particles, too. When scientists examine these substances under a microscope, they see that the solid particles within gels form a network, like the structure of a building. To make the substance flow so that you can squeeze it or spread it thin, you need to break that structure. When this requires a lot of force, the substance is stiff and has a high elastic modulus. When less force is required, the substance flows easily and has a lower elastic modulus.
The research group led by Furst studied a gel made of particles of poly(methylmethacrylate) latex (PMMA), commonly known as acrylic, dispersed in a mixture of two colorless liquids, cyclohexane and cyclohexyl bromide. They found that this gel was composed of glassy clusters of particles connected to each other with weak areas in between. To understand how these clusters contributed to the gel's properties, the team wanted to determine the boundaries where each cluster began and ended.
"This is like Facebook," said Furst. "We were trying to figure out -- who is connected locally to whom?"
Collaborator James W. Swan, assistant professor of chemical engineering at MIT, conducted simulations to explore the physics behind the clusters. He then applied graph theory, the mathematical study of graphs, to the simulation data to figure out which clusters connected to each other, identify the edges of each group and color-code the clusters. It was like defining the boundaries of intermingling friend groups.
Next, the researchers compared the simulation results to physical studies of the gels and confirmed that the connections and distributions matched their predictions. They determined that the way these locally glassy clusters pack together determines the material's elastic modulus. The interconnected clusters act as rigid, load-bearing units within the gel.
"Until now, no one had seen and described how these clusters packed and how they affected elasticity," said Furst. "We brought the puzzle together."
The paper's authors also include Zsigmond Varga, a process development engineer at ExxonMobil; Lilian C. Hsiao, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State University and Michael J. Solomon, a professor of chemical engineering and Dean and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Graduate Studies, Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan.
This paper was years in the making as the investigators followed up on lingering questions that bothered them and prompted them to keep working.
"This discovery was the result of the teamwork of the principal investigators, the experimental skills of our students, and the passion and tenacity we all brought as we worked through this problem," said Furst.
Funding for this project came from the International Fine Particles Research Institute, the National Science Foundation, the American Chemical Society (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund.

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