On Friday, April 25th, 2008, the 20th Annual Melosh Competition for the Best Student Paper in Finite Element Analysis was held at Duke University.  The competition resulted in a tie between Ludovic Chamoin (of the University of Texas, Austin) and Irina Kalashnikova (of Stanford University).   Here is a picture of the 2008 Melosh Medalists with the judges, Leo Franca and Nicolas Moes:

 From L to R: Leo Franca, Ludovic Chamoin, Irina Kalashnikova, Nicolas Moes.  

Six finalists for the 20th Annual Melosh Competition for the Best Student Paper in Finite Element Analysis have been announced.  They are:

Ludovic Chamoin, University of Texas at Austin

Irina Kalashnikova, Stanford University

Christian Linder, University of California, Berkeley

Ajaykumar Rajasekharan, Stanford University

Saurabh Srivastava, SUNY Buffalo

Tim Wildey, University of Texas at Austin 

All six finalists will compete in the second phase of the Competition, the Melosh Symposium, to be held at Duke University on Friday, April 25, 2008.

The 20th Annual Melosh Competition for the Best Student Paper on Finite Element Analysis will be held at Duke University on April 25, 2008.  The competition has become one of the premier graduate student events in the broad area of mechanics.   We have held the competition at a variety of locations over the past several years, and this year we are returning to Durham.   

As a moderator here on iMechanica, I have deleted a few posts recently that were clearly spam. As iMechanica grows and becomes more visible within the mechanics community and the broader internet community, we can expect the frequency of these kinds of posts to increase.

I think we might also expect to see posts turn from a spirited intellectual exchange to one that is personal. What should the moderators do in this instance? What is the appropriate response? Should we ban members that do this repeatedly? Are there other types of behavior that are deemed unacceptable here?

The 19th Annual Melosh Competition for the Best Student Paper in Finite Element Analysis was held last Friday, April 27, at ETH Zurich. Two medalists were selected this year from the six finalists. The 2007 Melosh Medalists are Vikram Gavini, from Caltech, and Michael Hain, from Leibniz University, Hannover.

I taught a short course some time ago on the eXtended Finite Element Method, and thought many people would find the notes useful.  

So I've posted them here, in .mov format (as exported with the Apple software keynote).  The advantage of this format is that, when you click on one of the .mov files, it should open a separate browser.  Clicking in the window will advance the slide. This way you see all the movies, etc, as well as the sequence as it appears when I gave the talk.  There is a way to add audio to this format as well - something I may pursue in the future.  

The six finalists for the 19th Annual Robert J. Melosh Medal Competition for the Best Student Paper in Finite Element Analysis were announced last Friday. They are

Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Cornell University

These used to be hosted at Northwestern, but the files were taken down some time ago. The original 1d and 2d Matlab routines for the element-free Galerkin method are now located at

http://www.duke.edu/~jdolbow/EFG/programs.html

These routines are described in detail in the paper

J. Dolbow and T. Belytschko (1998), "An Introduction to Programming the Meshless Element Free Galerkin Method," Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 207--242.

I've been a Mac person ever since they started basing their operating systems on what is essentially a Linux kernel.

One of the frustrating things, however, concerned the lack of OpenGL support. With the recent update to X11 by Apple, this is fixed. However, in order to use it remotely, from the X11 terminal, one has to use the option

%ssh -Y login_name@remotehost

as opposed to the previously used

%ssh -X login_name@remotehost

This is a pretty obscure change, and has not been well-documented by Apple.

Questions about meshfree methods are now addressed in the forum, under the Computational Mechanics subheading.

If you click on a question below, you will be redirected to the forum. I will update this post as more questions are added. Other experts are encouraged to augment my response there.

1. If I have meshfree shape functions that satisfy Kronecker-Delta, can I satisfy essential boundary conditions?

2. Is a mesh required in meshfree methods?

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE

PRATT SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

The Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science invites applications for tenure-track faculty positions. Two tenure-track appointments are anticipated and are open to all ranks, Assistant, Associate and Full Professor level. Applications are invited from candidates with research interests in autonomous vehicles and robotic systems, conventional and alternative energy technology, and MEMS/NEMS devices. Applications will also be accepted for allied mechanical engineering disciplines such as nonlinear dynamics and control, sensor technology, small and micro-scale propulsion systems, aerodynamics and aeroelasticity, thermal sciences, and vehicle dynamics.

Successful candidates are expected to establish a vibrant research program, obtain competitive external research funding, and participate actively in teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Applicants should submit a cover letter describing their research interests and qualifications, a curriculum vitae, and the names and addresses of three references. Please submit your application to mems-search@mems.duke.edu as a PDF (preferred) or Word file attached to your email. Duke University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

The Department of Energy is once again calling for applications to its Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (CSGF) program. These fellowships cover full tuition and provide a generous stipend for up to four years, and they also provide travel support and matching funds for a computer. Undergraduate seniors or first and second year graduate students are eligible to apply.

Additional information, including an online application, is available here. Applications are due by January 10, 2007

The 9th US National Congress on Computational Mechanics will feature a student presentation competition. This competition continues in the format pursued at the recent World Congress in Los Angeles. It is open to students who have an abstract accepted for presentation at the Congress.

The 19th Annual Melosh Competition for the Best Student Paper on Finite Element Analysis will be held at ETH Zurich, on April 27, 2007.    The competition has become one of the premier graduate student events in the broad area of mechanics.   We have held the competition at a variety of locations over the past several years, but this is the first time it will be held outside the US.  We are presently seeking funds to provide travel fellowships for those students selected as finalists, as this represents an excellent opportunity for students to visit a world-class institution.  

Details on the competition and submission procedure can be found here.   The extended abstracts are due on January 8, 2007. I want to emphasize that the competition is really one on computational science.   As a result, papers on meshfree methods, molecular dynamics methods, their coupling with the FEM, etc., are welcome.   Please encourage your colleagues working in computational science to consider applying.