Dear Fracture mechanician,

In my group we published 2 articles with novelties on the phase field model for brittle fracture:

I hope some of you find this work interesting, the code with the cohesive zone model for fatigue can be downloaded as a user element (UEL) subroutine for Abaqus from empaneda.com/codes

A cohesive zone framework for environmentally assisted fatigue

Susana del Busto, Covadonga Betegón, Emilio Martínez Pañeda

Engineering Fracture Mechanics (2017)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001379441730098X

Polymers are commonly foamed in the solid phase by the expansion of a dissolved gas such as CO2.  The foaming process is sensitive to the constitutive properties of the polymer, and the final porosity is dictated by bursting of the cell walls.  There is a need to model the solid foaming process for a range of polymers in order to determine the sensitivity of foaming to the properties of the polymer and to the process variables (such as thermal history and CO2 content). The foam expansion response is sensitive to the constitutive properties of the polymer.

The 2016 impact factor for Journal of Applied Mechanics has increased to 2.133.  This increase is mainly due to the rapid review process, which has led to significant increase of submissions (and significant decrease of the acceptance rate).  The average time for the first round of review is < 10 days, and that for the second round of review (if necessary), including both the authors' revision time and reviewers' re-review time, is < 3 weeks.  

The enthalpic response of amorphous polymers depends strongly on their thermal and deformation history. Annealing just below the glass transition temperature (Tg) causes a large endothermic overshoot of the isobaric heat capacity at Tg as measured by differential scanning calorimetry, while plastic deformation (cold work) can erase this overshoot and create an exothermic undershoot. This indicates that a strong coupling exists between the polymer structure, thermal response and mechanical deformation.

The international research training group "Integrated Engineering of continuous-discontinuous long fiber reinforced polymer structures” offers one post-doc position at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Discontinuous long fiber reinforced polymer structures with local continuous fiber reinforcements represent an important class of lightweight materials. This class of materials has a significant potential for energy savings due to the high specific stiffness and strength as well as the variety of design options in diverse technical applications, e.g., in vehicle construction.

Dear Colleagues, 

I am writing this email in regards to a special issue being organized by me focused on "Mechanical Behavior of Interfaces in Materials" for the Journal of Materials Science along with Dr. Rajendran, Dr. Namburu, and Dr. Dubey..  . This special issue aims to address the links between the various characteristics of the interfaces (structural, chemical) and the response under various mechanical loading environments. A description of the scope is below:

Background/Scope:

CiteScore is an impact factor based on a 3-year citation window, calculated using data from the Scopus database. CiteScore is free to use, comprehensive and transparent.

One Ph.D. opening will be available in the Applied Mechanics of Materials Lab of Mechanical Engineering Department at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. The Ph.D. position will start ideally in Fall 2017 or the coming Spring 2018.