Congratulations to our postdoctoral researcher Bahman Taherkhani on receiving a DKK 2.5 million Villum Experiment Grant from the Villum Foundation for his project, “Shape-Changing Soft–Stiff Composites Through Mechanical Instabilities.”
Mechanical instabilities are commonly regarded as failure, yet they can offer a powerful and largely untapped mechanism for rapid, damage-free shape change. Research on soft–stiff composites (SSCs) is currently largely conducted on a case-by-case, geometry-dependent basis, making systematic design challenging. Bahman’s project asks a fundamental question: Can instability-driven shape transformations in SSCs be described by universal physical laws using a limited set of parameters? Or are they inherently dependent on specific geometries and configurations? The project combines theoretical and experimental approaches to systematically investigate instability-driven transformations in SSCs and develop a global, energy-based phase map of interface instabilities. If successful, this framework could provide predictive design rules for programmable, shape-changing SSCs and establish a new physical basis for exploiting mechanical instability.
Bahman is one of the 53 Villum Experiment 2026 recipients, selected from 280 applications following anonymous external peer review.
Congratulations, Bahman! We look forward to seeing where this exciting project takes you.
Read the news from SDU and the Villum Foundation.