Matthew (Matt) Kroonblawd is a staff scientist in the Reaction Dynamics Group, where he started as a postdoc under Nir Goldman following a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Missouri under Tommy Sewell. He is focused on developing computational approaches to understand interconnections between the mechanical, thermal, and chemical responses of molecular materials under nonequilibrium conditions. His work is rooted in molecular dynamics modeling and forages physically motivated connections to mesoscale and continuum theory.

Research interests include:

• Mechanochemistry
• Shock physics and high-rate processes
• Transport phenomena
• Materials aging and reactive degradation
• Mathematical methods in chemistry

Material systems of interest include:

• High explosives
• Polymers
• Organic small molecules and molecular crystals
• Surfaces and interfaces

Ph.D. Chemistry, University of Missouri - Columbia, 2016

B.A. Physics, University of Minnesota - Morris, 2012

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AWhLRX0AAAAJ&hl=en

Selected Publications:

Anisotropic strength behavior of single-crystal TATB, M. P. Kroonblawd*, B. A. Steele, M. D. Nelms, L. E. Fried, and R. A. Austin, Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering 30, 014004 (2022). Invited article in the Emerging Leaders 2021 focus issue. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-651X/ac3ca4

A hotspot's better half: Non-equilibrium intra-molecular strain in shock physics, B. W. Hamilton, M. P. Kroonblawd, C. Li, and A. Strachan*, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 12, 2756 (2021). https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c00233

Strongly anisotropic thermomechanical response to shock wave loading in oriented samples of the triclinic molecular crystal 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB), P. Zhao, M. P. Kroonblawd, N. Mathew, and T. Sewell*, Journal of Physical Chemistry C 125, 22747 (2021). https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.1c05139

Fourier-like thermal relaxation of nanoscale explosive hot spots, M. P. Kroonblawd*, B. W. Hamilton, and A. Strachan, Journal of Physical Chemistry C 125, 20570 (2021). https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.1c05599

Sensitivity of pore collapse heating to the melting temperature and shear viscosity of HMX, M. P. Kroonblawd* and R. A. Austin, Mechanics of Materials 152, 103644 (2021). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167663620306815

A quantum-based approach to predict primary radiation damage in polymeric networks, M. P. Kroonblawd*, N. Goldman, A. Maiti, and J. P. Lewicki, Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation 17, 463 (2021). https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jctc.0c00967

High explosive ignition through chemically activated nanoscale shear bands, M. P. Kroonblawd* and L. E. Fried, Physical Review Letters 124, 206002 (2020). https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.206002

Simulating transient heat transfer in graphene at finite Knudsen number via the Boltzmann transport equation and molecular dynamics, J. G. Christenson, M. P. Kroonblawd, R. A. Austin, L. E. Fried, and R. Philips*, Physical Review B 102, 205406 (2020). https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.102.205406

Mechanochemical synthesis of glycine oligomers in a virtual rotational diamond anvil cell, B. A. Steele, N. Goldman, I-F. W. Kuo, and M. P. Kroonblawd*, Chemical Science 11, 7760 (2020). Cover Article (front). https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/SC/D0SC00755B

Synthesis of functionalized nitrogen-containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other prebiotic compounds in impacting glycine solutions, M. P. Kroonblawd*, R. K. Lindsey, and N. Goldman, Chemical Science 10, 6091 (2019). Cover Article (back). https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2019/sc/c9sc00155g

Pressure-induced phase transition in 1,3,5-Triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB), B. A. Steele, S. M. Clarke, M. P. Kroonblawd, I-F. W. Kuo, P. F. Pagoria, S. N. Tkachev, J. S. Smith, S. Bastea, L. E. Fried, J. M. Zaug, E. Stavrou*, and O. Tschauner*, Applied Physics Letters 114, 191901 (2019). Cover Article (front). https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.5091947

Mechanochemical formation of heterogeneous diamond structures during rapid uniaxial compression in graphite, M. P. Kroonblawd* and N. Goldman, Physical Review B 97, 184106 (2018). https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.184106

Generating converged accurate free energy surfaces for chemical reactions with a force-matched semiempirical model, M. P. Kroonblawd*, F. Pietrucci, A. M. Saitta, and N. Goldman, Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation 14, 2207 (2018). https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jctc.7b01266

Role of filler and its heterostructure on moisture sorption mechanisms in polyimide films, H. N. Sharma, M. P. Kroonblawd, Y. Sun, and E. A. Glascoe*, Scientific Reports 8, 16889 (2018). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35181-1

A generalized crystal-cutting method for modeling arbitrarily oriented crystals in 3D periodic simulation cells with applications to crystal-crystal interfaces, M. P. Kroonblawd, N. Mathew, S. Jiang, and T. D. Sewell*, Computer Physics Communications 207, 232 (2016). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010465516301898

*Corresponding Author

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

• 2021, WSC/CP Monthly Code Group Award for “Leading an LSCI effort on the Sierra supercomputer"
• 2020, WPD Silver Award for “Discovery of shock initiation mechanism in TATB"
• 2019, WCI Team Gold Award for “Discovery of new phase of TATB high explosive"
• 2019, PLS Directorate Science and Technology Award for “Elucidation of prebiotic synthesis pathways that have illuminated questions regarding the origins of life"

 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

• 2015, SPOT Award
• 2015, Student Symposium Poster Award for an “Outstanding group presentation in materials science"

 

University of Missouri Columbia

• 2016, Breckenridge/Lyons Award for Outstanding Graduate Research
• 2012, Nightingale Chemistry Scholarship

 

University of Minnesota Morris

• 2012, Abbott Award for Physics
• 2011, Scholar of the College
• 2010, Betty Peterson Memorial Scholarship for Piano Accompanying