research and projects
This page outlines a selection of ongoing and past research and development projects.
Minor “projects” to solve specific challenges in the lab, potentially of interest to other researchers, may be added here in the future as well. Not all projects are included, some current and historical ones are withheld for reasons of e.g. potential publication.
The “SECRET” fellowship of Dr Richard Hodgkinson investigates rheology under kinematicially mixed flows. Specifically, this investigates the effect of extensional flow on shear viscosity, for a range of complex fluids, through further developing the “ToPSREF” technique he devised during his PhD.
The “UTM” project is a open source DIY “universal test machine” (aka. tensile tester) capable of up to ~20kN load capacity, designed to be built with a minimum of complex parts and accessories. A collaboration between Materials Science and Engineering at The University of Sheffield and Materiom.
A brief description of previous work in the Green Nanomaterials Research Group (Chemical and Biological Engineering, The University of Sheffield) that, as part of it, led to the fabrication of a setup for low-cost in-line optical absorbance measurement for the well known “Villermaux-Dushman” mixing characterisation technique.
A currently ongoing piece of work being written up as a publication at the current time. Presented at a number of conferences/meetings (e.g. INNFM meeting 2023).
Examples of lab hardware built during Richard’s first PDRA post with Dr Chris Holland (Natural Materials Group) at The University of Sheffield.
Work on developing methods for in-situ imaging of spin coating processes through summer projects during Richard’s undergraduate.