The MECASOFT Project aims to provide the international contact mechanics community with relevant mechanical laws, as universal as possible, for elastic or viscoelastic materials (adhesive contact or not) to get a simple comprehension and reasonable estimates of the involved mechanisms in micro/nano indentation experiments. The MECASOFT project will focus on soft materials, i.e whose moduli are below the MPa. This concerns materials such as cross-linked elastomers, gels, tissues, or cell membranes. The Post-Doctoral position concerns the elaboration and characterization of model soft polymer films and second, the determination of film surface properties in relation with surface tension/adhesion behaviors. Polymer films elaborated should be homogeneous on the mechanical and chemical point of view. Their physical and chemical properties will be extensively characterized by SEC, DSC, TGA, FTIR, and rheology to access their bulk characteristics. Their surface properties will be characterized helps to wettability, SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) and AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) both in Tapping, Contact modes and LFM (Lateral Force Microscopy).
This Post-Doctoral position also concerns validation of contact mechanic models, developed elsewhere by a PhD student at ICube, through the experimental determination of the local mechanical properties of model soft polymer films.
