Kinetics of surface growth and coupled diffusion in a continuum framework

Surface growth by association or dissociation of material on the boundary of a body is ubiquitous in both natural and engineering systems. It is the fundamental mechanism by which biological materials grow, starting from the level of a single cell, and is increasingly applied in engineering processes for fabrication and self-assembly. A significant challenge in modeling such processes arises due to the inherent coupled interaction between the growth kinetics, the local stresses, and the diffusing constituents needed to sustain the growth. Moreover, the volume of the body changes not only due to surface growth but also by variation in solvent concentration within the bulk of the body. In this thesis we present a general theoretical framework that captures these phenomena and describes the kinetics of surface growth while accounting for coupled diffusion.We then use a combination of analytical and numerical tools to study growth in simple geometries.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Abi-Akl, Rami.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tal Cohen.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121762

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/121762