Karla Polivka's Self Introduction

Hi my name is Karla Polivka. I am working part-time on my PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). What I mean by part-time is that I have been taking one class a semester for the last 5 semesters. I also received my Bachelors and Masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering from UNL.

In addition to working on my PhD part-time, I am a full-time reseach associate engineer at Midwest Roadside Safety Facility (MwRSF), here at UNL. MwRSF is an internationally recognized organization which conducts highway/roadside/race track safety research. MwRSF engineers design, develop, test, and evaluate roadside safety features, such as guardrails, bridge rails, end terminal, crash cushions, sign supports, and so forth. We also conduct cost-effective analyses in order to determine the appropriateness of safety improvements. More recently, we have developed the SAFER Barrier, an energy-absorbing barrier system for high-speed race track applications, and continue to develop and improve other race track safety features in cooperation with Indy Racing League (IRL) and NASCAR. MwRSF is currently conducting research on NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow. MwRSF has also becom recognized as a leader in computer simulation modeling of roadside safety features with the use of a non-linear finite element code, LS-DYNA. Check out our website for more information: http://mwrsf.unl.edu

I have taken a few courses in solid mechanics through out my acedemic career and they include Advanced Mechanics of Materials, Infinite Elements, and Continuum Mechanics. My motivation to advance my career in Engineering along with my desire to learn new things have been my long standing strenths in anything that I do and will be for this course also. As far as my weaknesses, balancing my time in order to put forth the effort to learn everything and anything that I possibly can. The other potential weakness (but it is also a positive thing) is that I will have to miss a couple of classes in the next month when my baby decides that he/she wants to come into this world. Maybe I'll luck out and he/she will be born during one of the spring breaks. I can only hope!

Well, as you have read, the direction of my research is along the lines of highway/roadside safety research due to the fact that that is what I am involved with day in and day out. Since becoming involved with MwRSF, developing safety hardware and making a differnce on the roadways by saving lives has become a passion of mine. Understanding the cracking principles as well as crack initiation and propagation can only help me understand some of the real life phenomena that we see in the research that we conduct at MwRSF. We have seen many unusual metal fractures and this course will help me understand why it occurred. In general, fracture mechanics will broaden my overall knowledge in the solid mechanics area.