Below is a message from the Secretary of the Society for Natural Philosophy. A formative influence of our field passes on.

 Dear Members of the Society for Natural Philosophy.

 We are sorry to be the bearers of sad news, but on Tuesday June 6th, 2017, Walter Noll passed away at his home in Pittsburgh surrounded by his wife Marilyn and two children, Victoria and Peter.  He was a founding member and a past Chairman of the Society. He made major contributions to the fields of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics.  There will be a memorial service at Carnegie Mellon University, which has yet to be scheduled.

 Secretary,

Wladimir Neves.

Selection and thermal stability of phases are important in design of high entropy alloys (HEA). In this study, phase formations in cast AlFeCoNiCu HEA were investigated. Ab-initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations were used to determine crystal structures of phases at different temperatures in equiatomic composition of AlFeCoNiCu. The AIMD results showed a possible coexistence of a face-centered cubic (fcc) phase and a bodycentered cubic (bcc) phase at the room temperature and indicated stabilization of a single fcc phase above 1070 K at the equiatomic composition of AlFeCoNiCu.

Published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b02123

Professor Ares Rosakis (Caltech) and Professor Huajian Gao (Brown University) were awarded the 2016 and 2017 von Karman Medals, respectively, by Professor JS Chen (UCSD), President of the Engineering Mechanics Institute, ASCE, at its annual conference in San Diego, CA, in June, 2017.

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship position as soon as possible at the University of South Carolina, focused on computational modeling of dynamic impact onto composite materials. The research involves modeling using finite element techniques to predict damage and failure in aerospace composites. The successful applicant, preferably a US citizen, must have a background in computational mechanics and finite element modeling. Familiarity with LS-DYNA is a plus.

I am in search of two postdocs to join my group, at MIT, on September 1st , 2017, or earlier. These positions will provide a unique flexibility in choice of research topic which will, in general, target problems in nonlinear solid mechanics. See our group website (http://tal-cohen.wixsite.com/website) for more information on our present research thrusts. Though our primary focus is on theoretical mechanics, candidates with experimental and computational experience are also encouraged to apply.

Dear researchers----We spent more than two years to prepare a research proposal and it was submitted to a federal funding agency (not NSF).  Based on one reviewer’s comments,  the program manager rejected our proposal. Our title is “A Multi-Scale Approach of Combining Nano-indentation with Computational Mechanics to Predict Impact Behavior of Structural Composite Materials”. I only list these comments related to nano-indentation. Your frank opinion is really appreciated.

Computational Biomechanics for Medicine XII; MICCAI 2017 Workshop, Quebec City, Canada, 2017 September 14

Place:
Quebec City, Canada
The MICCAI Computational Biomechanics for Medicine Workshops are held annualy in conjunction with
the MICCAI International Conferences on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention.

Webpapge:
http://www.cbm.mech.uwa.edu.au/CBM2017/index.html.

Cracks are created by massive breakage of molecular or atomic bonds. The latter, in its turn, leads to the highly localized loss of material, which is the reason why even closed cracks are visible by a naked eye. Thus, fracture can be interpreted as the local material sink. Mass conservation is violated locally in the area of material failure. We consider a theoretical formulation of the coupled mass and momenta balance equations for a description of fracture.