education

I have some problem in defining the material properties using UMAT. I want to simulate the cubic stress-strain traction-sepration law. Solution doesn't converge after max load is applied (i.e zero slope of stress-strain plot). I am using riks solver. I have written my stress -strain relationship as below in UMAT file. Please tell me how to converge the solution even after zero slope of stress-strain relationship. Can i make my load factor(lambda) negative in riks option.

Professor Ed Berger, Univeristy of Virginia Mechanical Engineering, is featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education for his use of web technologies and, in particular, "video solutions" for teaching undergraduate mechanics courses. See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i34/era01301.htm.  Or contact Berger at berger@virginia.edu.  Ed hasn't used this approach for all undergraduate mechanics courses as yet, but the potential is there. 

I wish to inform the imechanica community about my recent book,  Polymer Engineering Science and Viscoelasticity, Springer, 2008. THe book starts at the beginning and contains both the physics of polymers and the mathematics of viscoelasticity. It is also unique in the history of mechanics in being the (first ever?) father-daughter book. Those interested in polymer mechanics may find this a useful resource! It may be found in your library or further information can be found here

World Scientific Pub. Co. will soon (2008 Winter) publish a new graduate textbook on Micromechanics and Nanomechanics.  The book is based on a lecture notes that have been used in Berkeley for seven years. Reading of book requires minimum knowledge of continuum mechanics and mathematics, and the book is intended for the first year graduate students as well as those practitioners who have no time to read the literature for self-study.

I have read some papers about fracture mechanics of functionally graded materials. I find there are different results for the stress intensity factors when the crack length is close to "0" . In some papers the values of stress intensity factors are "1" when the crack length is close to "0" , but in other papers the values of stress intensity factors are not "1". I obtain the stress intensity factors is "1" when the length of crack is close to "0". I hope to get the explaination about the results.Thanks a lot.

What are the good books to refer for thermal analysis with practical applications.

Rob Wood teaches a course on micro/nano robotics, and asks me to give a 30-minute tutorial on the theory of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs).  I attach my slides, which might be useful to you if you'd like to include this topic in your class.  The tutorial draws upon work in the literature, as well as recent work in my group:

(This message was sent to iMechanica by Ken Chong, of the National Science Foundation).  This letter is to call your attention to an opportunity to broaden participation particularly of underrepresented students in Ph.D. programs in engineering through supplements to current research grants funded by the divisions in the Directorate for Engineering (ENG) at the National Science Foundation.