Dear Colleagues:

Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference(EMI2020) and Probalistic Mechanics and Reliability Conference(PMC2020) will be held at Columbia University in the upper west side of New York City, May 26-29, 2020 (https://www.emi-conference.org/).

As a part of this meeting, we are organizing a mini-symposium to address recent advances in the Mechanics of Superconducting Materials and Structures and Related Materials at Cryogenic Temperatures.

One PhD position is available for Fall 2020 in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stony Brook University, New York Long Island. The research program focuses on the mechanics and design of novel advanced materials and metamaterials to achieve high mechanical performance, new wave propagation features, and multifunctional characteristics. The candidates with background in solid mechanics and finite element analysis are highly encouraged to apply. 

The subject of this blog is a fracture mechanical study of soft polymers. It is well written and technically detailed which makes the reading a good investment. The paper is:

"Experimental and numerical assessment of the work of fracture in injection-moulded low-density polyethylene" by Martin Kroon, Eskil Andreasson, Viktor Petersson, Pär A.T. Olsson in Engineering Fracture Mechanics 192 (2018) 1–11.

I am deeply saddened to share this news.

http://news.mit.edu/2020/professor-emeritus-ali-argon-pioneer-mechanics…

Ali will be missed by many of us.

25th International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics – 23 - 28 August 2020, Milano. Italy.

www.ictam2020.org  

The extended abstract uploading will close on January 10th, 2020.

This is a corrected, revised and expanded edition. I added new Chapter 11 on modeling fracture in soft materials. Arguably, fracture is the central and unsolved problem in solid mechanics. I describe a new perspective on this problem based on the material sink approach, in which momenta and mass balance are coupled.

The Onck-group at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands has an opening for a post-doctoral position in the field of (coarse-grained) molecular dynamics of proteins. The candidate should have a background in molecular dynamics of hard or soft matter and is not afraid to enter a new research direction. The post-doc position is part of the oLife Fellowship Programme, a joint initiative by seven research institutes in The Netherlands for interdisciplinary research on fundamental questions concerning the origin and evolution of life. The university of Groningen is a top-1

Zheng Jia, of Zhejiang University, will be the next Editor of the iMechanica Journal Club. The Journal Club was initiated in January 2007, soon after the launch of iMechanica. It has quickly grown into a flagship feature of iMechanica, epitomizing the vibrant topics and dynamic researchers at the frontier of mechanics.

There are multiple EPSRC-funded PhD studentships in my research group and especially the following topics at the University of Kent, UK. 

• 4D printing and Smart Devices 
• Data-Driven Modelling of Metamaterials
• Macroscale Modelling of Composite Structures

There are also possible opportunities to work with my industrial partners and overseas collaborations.

The 2019 Timoshenko Medal Acceptance Lecture by Prof. J.N. Reddy of Texas A&M Univerisity has been published as a Guest Editorial in the Journal of Applied Mechanics, as attached.