Geoffrey Magda honored for AEM internship work with Ryan Elliott

Geoffrey Magda is one of 32 (out of 500) students in his class to be awarded a 2019 Prix du Stage de Recherche in Mechanics for his internship work in Prof. Elliott’s research group.

Geoffrey Magda is an undergraduate student from the Ecole Polytechnique in France studying Mechanics (https://www.polytechnique.edu/en/department-of-mechanics).  As part of his degree program, Geoffrey joined Prof. Elliott’s group as a research intern student from April 1 through August 2, 2019.  While at AEM, Geoffrey worked to develop an understanding of the mechanics of architected materials.  Recent developments in additive manufacturing techniques have revitalized interest in the behavior of the mechanical behavior of materials with engineered (periodic) microstructures.  Geoffrey’s work required the application of advanced applied mathematics methods and theories, including symmetry group theory and equivariant bifurcation methods. 

“In the short few months that Mr. Magda was in my research group, he made impressive progress,” said Prof. Elliott. 

Architected materials are commonly constructed of a series of beam-like struts connected by joints to produce a porous, lightweight, and strong material such as a honeycomb.  Geoffrey's project ultimately evolved to look closely at how subtle geometric changes of these joints can lead to qualitative changes in the buckling and failure mechanisms of architected materials.  Indeed, the results of his work, as presented in his internship report, show that there is a clear connection between the joint geometry and the critical buckling mode of the architected material's behavior.  These results add to a growing understanding (developed by Prof. Elliott’s group and others) of failure in architected materials, and will eventually lead to a set of design principles/guidelines for this growing and important class of advanced materials.

Geoffrey is also currently earning a Master’s degree at CalTech.  Once his M.S. is completed, in June 2020, Mr. Magda will return to France to start his Ph.D. studies at the Ecole Polytechnique in the Laboratoire de Mécanique des Solides (Solid Mechanics Lab).