Quantitative high-throughput measurement of bulk mechanical properties using commonly available equipment

In the era of Big Data and Machine Learning, it remains a large challenge to measure mechanical properties at high throughput, as these assays often require custom or expensive equipment or can only measure a few samples at a time. In this work, we explore mechanical properties that can be measured using a novel high-throughput colorimetric method using a common laboratory centrifuge, multiwell plates, and microparticles. The use of centrifugation is key, as it enables the application of a homogeneous mechanical force across many samples in a multiwell plate, that can be arranged in a completely arbitrary fashion. To measuring bulk mechanical properties of soft materials, we embed microparticles inside samples that are loaded within multiwell plates, and then we determine the centrifugal speed that enables the particles to break out of the materials. These results were then correlated to mechanical properties such as modulus and yield strength, and we establish quantitative agreement with more standard one-at-a-time test methods through experimentation and analytical solutions of the underlying mechanics. We then demonstrate the throughput of our method, which is limited only by the number of wells in the plates.