<b>Mechanics-Informed Transport Phenomena in Energy Storage and Biopharmaceutical Delivery</b>

<p dir="ltr">Mechanics plays a pivotal role in the stability, performance, and degradation of porous systems, particularly when microstructural evolution and transport phenomena are tightly coupled. This thesis presents a unified, mechanics-informed computational framework capable of simulating finite deformation, microstructure evolution, mechanical damage, and transport processes across diverse porous systems. The framework is generalizable to a broad class of coupled problems and is adapted here to investigate two distinct but structurally analogous applications: high-capacity lithium-ion batteries and subcutaneous delivery of biologics.</p><p dir="ltr">In the context of lithium-ion batteries this work focuses particularly on silicon-based anodes, which offer high capacity but suffer from severe degradation due to electro-chemo-mechanical interactions. The framework captures key inter-physical couplings—such as rate-dependent plasticity, swelling-induced stress, stress-regulated transport, mechanical fracture, and transport-induced heterogeneity—across evolving microstructures. Through microstructure-resolved simulations, the model reveals how internal morphology, active material distribution, and electrochemical kinetics collectively govern (de)lithiation dynamics, stress localization, damage initiation, and lithium trapping. It enables a mechanistic classification of degradation pathways leading to loss of active material and loss of lithium inventory. The simulations highlight the critical role of microstructure evolution in accelerating performance decay and mechanical instability. Furthermore, a solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) model is developed to assess its adaptive stress-buffering potential. The framework is used to evaluate design and operating strategies that can mitigate degradation—such as charging protocols, particle morphology optimization, and robust SEI formation—offering insights into improving cycle life and safety of next-generation high-capacity batteries.</p><p dir="ltr">The framework is extended to the mechanics of soft poroelastic tissues to study biologics injection-induced deformation and its connection to pain sensing. Continuum-scale poroelastic model is utilized to quantify mechanical biomarkers such as interstitial pressure, matrix stress, and displacement fields. The model predicts the mechanical response of the tissue under varying injection conditions. Pore-scale simulations capture the influence of evolving pore morphology on drug dispersion and tissue loading. Accurate quantitative prediction of mechanical biomarkers offer a physics-based approach to pain assessment.</p><p dir="ltr">Together, these investigations underscore the value of mechanics-informed multiphysics modeling in decoding complex interactions across scales in porous systems. The developed framework provides a versatile tool for material optimization, performance prediction, and design of intervention strategies across energy storage and biopharmacological applications.</p>