The 64 m diameter Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT), located near Cagliari (Italy), is the world’s second largest fully steerable radio telescope with an active surface. Among its peculiarities is the capability of modifying the configuration of the primary mirror surface by means of electromechanical actuators. This capability enables, within a fixed range, balancing of the deformation caused by external loads. In this way, the difference between the ideal shape of the mirror (which maximizes its performance) and the actual surface can be reduced.

Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship at the University of Manchester to help develop the next generation of simulation tools. These will be used to evaluate the structural integrity of novel aerospace composites under a wide range of operational conditions. The student will join a €3-4M euro research project that has recently been funded to investigate the use of biomaterials in aerospace composites. The project involves a range of academic and industrial partners in Europe and China, providing many opportunities for overseas research visits.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the outcome of the 2015 competition for the Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty. This award is given annually to rapidly emerging junior faculty who exemplify the creative use and development of mechanics. The intent of the award is to promote the field of mechanics, especially among young researchers. The selection committee consisted of: K. Ravi-chandar (UT Austin), Huajian Gao (Brown University), G. Ravichandran (Caltech), Roger Fosdick (Minnesota University), and Yonggang Huang (Northwestern University).

We are looking for a highly motivated individual with a strong background in materials science and mechanics, to sudy dynamic shear failure of metallic materials. Experience with numerical modeling required. Previous exposure to experimental work will be considered as an advantage.

Additional information can be found in the atatched description of the planned research.

Contact email:  merittel [at] technion.ac.il

Polymer–metal–polymer composite films are widely used in packaging, building, and cooling, and more recently as envelopes for pouch lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). The influences of heat seal temperature and dwell time on the heat seal strength (HSS) of five different multilayer films were investigated by T-peel testing. The failure modes were observed and analyzed by digital optical microscopy. Heat-sealing temperature and dwell time interacted and simultaneously influenced the HSS. Temperature was confirmed as the primary factor while dwell time was secondary.

Immediate opening for a post-doctoral researcher in the area of coatings tribology

Transfer printing, an emerging manufacturing technique for heterogeneous material integration, is combined with the unique mechanics of soft composite films to realize a responsive surface for tunable topography in this work. Soft composite films are fabricated by transfer printing thin silicon ribbons on elastomeric films in a staggered manner. The corrugation formation in soft composite films requires a well-organized spatial distribution of the silicon ribbons which is enabled by transfer printing processes developed here.

cdmHUB has completed the level I micromechanics simulation challenge. Several micromechanics methods/tools including both commercially available tools such as  Altair MDS, ESI VPS, Digimat, SwiftComp and research codes such as MAC/GMC/HFGMC and FVDAM, are used to analyze six typical 2D/3D microstructures. All the results and model files, inputs and outputs, and the report are hosted on cdmHUB as a live project at https://cdmhub.org/projects/mmsimulationchalleng/.

The AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Technical Committee (MDO TC) is very pleased to announce a call for papers to be presented in a series of special sessions on Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) within the AIAA SciTech conference. To this end, the MDO TC is soliciting papers with recent research, technological advancements, and systems level perspectives that address issues/challenges involved utilization of computational methods in optimization and design over multiple length scales from “processing”

The AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) Structures Technical Committee (STC) is very pleased to announce a call for papers to be presented in a series of special sessions on Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) within the AIAA SciTech conference. To this end, the STC Technical Committee is soliciting papers with recent research, technological advancements, and systems level perspectives that address issues/challenges involved in the integration of computational materials models and design/structures over multiple length scales from “processing” to