Robert Young (materials scientist)

Robert Joseph Young FRS FREng FInstP (born 29 May 1948)[1] is a British materials scientist specialising in polymers and composites.[2][3] He is a Professor of Polymer Science and Technology at the National Graphene Institute of the University of Manchester.[4]

Robert Young

FRS FREng FInstP FIMMM
Born
Robert Joseph Young

(1948-05-29) 29 May 1948[1]
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (MA, PhD)
AwardsLeslie Holliday Prize (2011)
Swinburne Medal (2012)
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsNational Graphene Institute
University of Manchester
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
ThesisDeformation mechanism in crystalline polymers (1972)
Websiteresearch.manchester.ac.uk/portal/robert.young.html

Education

Young was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he received his Master of Arts[1] and Doctor of Philosophy degrees.[5][6]

Research and career

Young has published over 330 research papers which have been cited over 37,000 times, leading to a h-index of 91.[6][7][8] He is known for research on the relationships between the structure and mechanical properties of polymers and composites. A particular focus of his work has been the study of how materials such as carbon fibres and spider silk deform at the molecular level. He has also studied carbon-fibre composites, carbon nanotubes and the deformation of graphene — a one-atom thick sheet of carbon.[4] Among his work on polymer-graphene composites, one important result elucidated for the first time the relationship between composite reinforcement and matrix modulus.[9]

In his research, Young made a novel use of Raman spectroscopy. In this technique, laser light is shone onto a material and the wavelength and intensity of the resulting scattered light is measured and analysed. The changes in the light relate to changes in bond length between the atoms of the molecules in the material when the material is deformed.[4]

He has also co-authored the widely used textbook: Introduction to Polymers.[10]

Awards and honours

Young received the 2011 Leslie Holliday Prize and the 2012 Swinburne Medal from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and delivered the Swinburne Lecture in 2013.[4] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2013.[4] His certificate of election reads:

Robert Young is one of the world's foremost scientists and his innovative research has transformed our understanding of the relationships between structure and mechanical properties in polymers and composites. He has developed a theoretical framework to describe the role of dislocations in the plastic deformation of semi-crystalline polymers and identified new toughening mechanisms. He subsequently pioneered the use of Raman spectroscopy to study deformation micromechanics in fibres at the molecular level. He has demonstrated that this approach can be extended to the deformation of carbon-nanotubes and graphene nano-composites and has proven that continuum mechanics is still applicable at the nano-scale[11]

References
  1. Anon (2017). "Young, Prof. Robert Joseph". Who's Who (online ed.). A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.41403. Retrieved 2017-12-17. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Kinlock, A.J.; Young, R.J. (2014). Fracture Behaviour of Polymers Paperback. Springer. ISBN 978-9401715959.
  3. Young, Robert (2011). Introduction to polymers. Boca Raton: CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-8493-3929-5.
  4. Anon (2013). "Robert Young". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on 2016-11-11. Retrieved 2016-03-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. Young, Robert Joseph (1972). Deformation mechanism in crystalline polymers. repository.cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 183326728. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.478386.
  6. Robert Joseph Young ORCID 0000-0001-6073-9489
  7. Robert Young publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  8. Robert Young publications indexed by Google Scholar
  9. Young, Robert J.; Liu, Mufeng; Kinloch, Ian A.; Li, Suhao; Zhao, Xin; Vallés, Cristina; Papageorgiou, Dimitrios G. (January 2018). "The mechanics of reinforcement of polymers by graphene nanoplatelets". Composites Science and Technology. 154: 110–116. doi:10.1016/j.compscitech.2017.11.007.
  10. Young, Robert J.; Lovell, Peter A. (2011). Introduction to Polymers. doi:10.1201/9781439894156. ISBN 9781439894156.
  11. Anon (2013). "EC/2013/44: Young, Robert Joseph". royalsociety.org. Royal Society. Retrieved 22 December 2017.

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