Dan researches silk with his colleagues at the Department of Engineering Science and the Department of Zoology at Oxford. He carries out experiments to determine the stiffness and strength of silk fibres at high rates of stretch. At high stretch rates, materials can behave quite differently compared to when under static loads. The effect of deformation rate on a material can offer a significant insight into the underlying structure-property relationship - so why not try it with silk, often heralded as nature's wonder-material of the future.
Biography
I was previously a graduate student, and briefly a postdoc, in the Fracture and Shock Physics group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, where I also read Natural Sciences as an undergraduate. My PhD supervisor was Dr Bill Proud. My thesis was on the "mechanical properties of energetic composites", or "bashing up explosives" in more crass terms. During this time I was lucky enough to get to attend conferences in Hawaii, Pardubice in the Czech Republic, Florida, Nashville and Uxbridge.
Presently I am employed on a fascinating interdisciplinary research endeavour, pursued jointly by groups at the Department of Engineering Science and Department of Zoology. The aim of the project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is to observe the way in which the silks of spiders and silkworms behave when subjected to rapid straining. The goal is to understand the impact-response in terms of the underlying microstructure of silk. My colleagues on this project are Dr Clive Siviour, Professor David Porter, Dr Chris Holland and Beth Mortimer.
During Term, I assist with the teaching of Engineering Science at Oriel College, by tutoring first and second year students on parts of the structural, material and mechanical papers (P3 / A3).
Current Projects
- SHARD: Silk in High Rate Applications and Research into Damage Tolerance; in collaboration with the Silk Group at the Department of Zoology.
- Writing up papers from my thesis... I have two or three left to do, on sugar-HTPB composites and composite damage characterisation.
Research Interests
- High speed photography, impact, and wave analysis of structural loading
- Hopkinson bar techniques, applied to low-impedance materials
- Particulate composites, specifically polymer-bonded explosives
- Microstructural imaging, microtomography, 3D image analysis
- The effect of damage on mechanical properties and microstructure
Publications
Journal:
- Daniel R. Drodge, Beth Mortimer, Chris Holland, Clive R. Siviour, Ballistic Impact to Access the High-Rate Behaviour of Individual Silk Fibres, J. Mech. Phys. Solids, Available online 26 June 2012, ISSN 0022-5096, 10.1016/j.jmps.2012.06.007.
- Drodge, D. R.; Williamson, D. M.; Palmer, S. J. P.; Proud, W. G. & Govier, R. K. The mechanical response of a PBX and binder: combining results across the strain-rate and frequency domains J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys, 43, p. 335403 (2010) -pdf-
- S. M. Walley, C. R. Siviour, D. R. Drodge and J. E. Field; High-rate mechanical properties of energetic materials, Journal of Materials, Vol. 62, pp.31-34 (2010)
Conference:
- Williamson, D. M.; Drodge, D. R.; Cullis, I. G.; Gould, P. J. & Church, P. D. Towards A Fundamental Understanding Of The Thermomechanical Response Of Damaged Polymer Bonded Energetic Materials Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Detonation, Coeur d'Alene ID, 2010 -pdf-
- Drodge, D. R. & Proud, W. G. The Effects of Particle Size and Separation on PBX Deformation Proceedings of the Conference of the American Physical Society Topical Group on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter, Nashville TN, 2009, 1195, pp. 1381-1384 -pdf-
- Drodge, D. R.; Chapman, D. J. & Proud, W. Mechanical response of damaged explosive compositions Proceedings of the Conference of the American Physical Society Topical Group on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter, Nashville TN, 2009, 1195, pp. 1249-1253 -pdf-
- Drodge, D. R.; Williamson, D. M. & Proud, W. G. Estimation of a High-Rate Elastic Modulus Proceedings of the XI Annual Congress of the Society for Experimental Mechanics, Orlando FL, 2008 (electronic proceedings)
- Drodge, D. R.; Addiss, J. W.; Williamson, D. M. & Proud, W. G. Hopkinson Bar Studies of a PBX Simulant Proceedings of the Conference of the American Physical Society Topical Group on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter, Waikoloa HI, 2007, 955, pp. 513-516 -pdf-
- Briggs, R.; Drodge, D.; Williamson, D. & Proud, W. Two-Step Loading in a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar Proceedings of the Conference of the American Physical Society Topical Group on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter, Waikoloa HI, 2007, 955, pp. 1173-1176 -pdf-