ABOUT
Contrary to popular knowledge, most materials around us from foods, biological fluids, and adhesives, to cosmetics, concrete, paints, and polymers etc., whether natural or man-made, are neither simple fluids nor solids. Rather, their behaviour is a combination of both. The framework to study all such complex materials is Rheology, defined as the science of flow and deformation of matter. Due to the ubiquity of complex materials, rheology is a key ingredient for research in numerous scientific fields. Rheology is a truly interdisciplinary topic as it involves and is involved in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, geology, medicine, and engineering. Furthermore, rheology is uniquely positioned as the link between advances in soft matter science and industrial process operations.
The RheoMAXESS Theme is born out of early success in developing new rheo-SAXS/WAXS techniques at MAX IV and the strong drive for industrial collaborations around X-ray and neutron science in Sweden. The vision is to upscale the cooperation model, join focus with ESS, and galvanise a community around these two local unique strengths that will be capable of advancing soft matter science and technology and propel research around X-rays, neutrons, soft matter and rheology at MAX IV and ESS to a world-leading position.
Advanced rheometry for neutron and x-ray science: Core Group Leader, member of WG1 – Infrastructure development and WG3 – Education and outreach, LINXS Fellow
Professor, Department of Industrial and Materials Science, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.
Roland and his group work in the general area of rheology and processing of soft matter. Current research revolves around (i) complex fluids flows, (ii) field-matter interaction in nanostructured fluids for multifunctional properties and (iii) advanced rheometry. (i) is mostly focused on processing applications and nonlinear phenomena in general (instabilities) ranging from polymer melt flows to thixotropic yield stress fluids in general. In (ii) we use flow and magnetic fields to tailor the structure of soft matter / materials containing nanofillers, for e.g. antibacterial applications. And through (iv) we create the means to understand (i) and (ii) through characterization methods such as developing novel rheo-SAXS (small-angle X-ray scattering) techniques at MAX IV, nonlinear mechanical spectroscopy, rheology combined with optics, dielectric spectroscopy, high pressure rheometry etc.