Homework 1 - Self description

I am currently enrolled at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The main courses I've taken in Solid Mechanics are Continuum Mechanics and Advanced Finite Element Method (currently taking). My undergraduate and Master major is Civil Engineering, both obtained in my home country Brazil. I would say that my strength related to this course is my motivation to understand the complex physical process of cracking, and my weakness is probably the fact that I don't have a good background in Fracture Mechanics. I am curretly pursuing my PhD at UNL under supervision of Dr. David Allen. Unfortunately our group doesn't have a published website. I am currently working on the development of a multi-scale computational model for predicting the evolution of damage in composites subject to impact loading. So, a better understanding of fracture mechanics and of the physical process underlying cracking will be of major importance to my research work. Finally, as fracture mechanics is present in any engineering application, I am sure it will greatly improve my education in a general basis.