I always feel puzzled that the cost of the F35 increases at “a supersonic speed”. Now based on our proposal review process, I might find some partial answers.  In 2017 and 2018, we (including a full professor at a leading research university in the US) submitted two research proposals to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). Our proposal in 2017 had 7 technical concerns, but our proposal in 2018 didn’t improve at all, and had more than 30 technical concerns..

interfacial crack initiated from a polymer notch (click here to view this YouTube video from our experiment),     read more below to submit your abstracts

Prof. Jun Xu, Dr. Scott Grutzik, and I organize one topic on “Dynamic failure of materials and structures” for 2019 ASME Congress. We invite you, your colleagues and group members to submit short abstracts before ASME’s deadline of Feb 25, 2019. More details below: 

Aalto University School of Engineering in Finland invites application for 

TWO DOCTORAL STUDENT POSITIONS IN ICE MECHANICS

The positions are in the research group of Marine and Arctic Technology.

Applications are invited for PhD positions at the Algorithms in Medicine and Neuro-Technology Lab (AIMAN Lab) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA.

Research
The AIMAN Lab pursues fundamental breakthroughs in biomedical cyber-physical systems. The lab’s primary research focuses on application of mathematical modeling, controls and estimation theory, and machine learning in health information technology including decision support and automated care systems, with the intention of improving the quality of healthcare, as well as brain-computer interfaces to bring neuro-enhancements to the daily consumer.

Application
Interested researchers with passion in digital healthcare and neuroscience are encouraged to send their CV to Dr. Ramin Bighamian at rbighami [at] gmu.edu.

Qualification
Experience in controls engineering, estimation theory, machine learning, MATLAB
A Master's degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or other related disciplines.

Solving incompressible elasticity has been quite challenging numerically. The conventional approach for handling incompressibility is the so-called penalty method. A volumetric energy term enters into the strain energy and penalizes the volumetric deformation. One straightforward issue is that the penalty parameter goes directly into the tangent matrix. The bigger the penalty parameter, the worse the condition number of the matrix. This is really a manifestation of the ill-posedness of theories based on the Helmholtz free energy, in my opinion [3].

Dear colleagues,

I would like to share with you our latest paper focusing on the fracture of hydrogels of complex rheology.

Title: Tearing a hydrogel of complex rheology

Authors: Ruobing Bai, Baohong Chen, Jiawei Yang, Zhigang Suo*

Abstract:

The 7th edition of the International Digital Image Correlation (DIC) course will be held in Ghent, Belgium, 1-5 July 2019. There are still a few seats available (total participation limited to 20 to ensure maximum interaction). The course consists of lectures, hands-on data processing sessions and labs (camera set-up, 2D DIC and Stereo-DIC). Details and registration available here.

Journal of The Royal Society Interface 16(151), February 2019.    DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2018.0738

Michele Ciavarella Junki Joe Junki Joe Antonio Papangelo James Richard Barber

Just published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface

Ciavarella M, Joe J, Papangelo A, Barber JR. 2019 The role of adhesion in contact mechanics. J. R. Soc. Interface 16: 20180738. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2018.0738

Phase-field or gradient-damage approaches offer elegant ways to model cracks. Material stiffness decreases in the cracked region with the evolution of the phase-field or damage variable. This variable and, consequently, the decreased stiffness are spatially diffused, which essentially means the loss of the internal links and the bearing capacity of the material in a finite region. Considering the loss of material stiffness without the loss of inertial mass seems to be an incomplete idea when dynamic fracture is considered.