Polymer based Nanostructured Materials (PNMs), have substantial scientific and technological potential in many areas in the automotive industry, drug delivery, biosensors and energy sectors, due to their superior mechanical and physicochemical properties. Major challenges for all PNMs lie in controlling their behaviour, starting from the heterogeneities at the atomic scale, to obtain materials with advanced properties for tailored applications. This is a highly non-trivial problem, due to the inherently enormous range of spatiotemporal scales characterizing such macromolecular systems, and the complex behaviour of the materials at interphases.

We developed a suite of computational methods for predicting the behaviour of PNMs at engineering scales, starting from their atomic structure, through integration of atomistic simulations, homogenization approaches towards new continuum models and data-driven machine learning algorithms. The hierarchical nature of the proposed methodology allows the rational and systematic design of high performance advanced materials.

 

Dr. Hilal Reda is an Associate Research Scientist at the Cyprus Institute. He holds a prestigious Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship via the project NANOMEC. He works on the development of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) for novel applications, which have attracted considerable interest in recent years due to the enhanced properties of PNCs, including mechanical rigidity, stiffness and toughness, electrical and thermal conductivity, etc.

His expertise encompasses computational modeling of materials, polymer nanocomposites (PNCs), multiscale modeling, and topology optimization. His research advances the understanding of composite and nanocomposite materials, particularly through multiscale computational methodologies and homogenization techniques.