Any fracture process ultimately involves the rupture of atomic bonds. Processes at the atomic scale therefore critically influence the toughness and overall fracture behavior of materials. Atomistic simulation methods including large-scale molecular dynamics simulations with classical potentials, density functional theory calculations and advanced concurrent multiscale methods have led to new insights e.g. on the role of bond trapping, dynamic effects, crack-microstructure interactions and chemical aspects on the fracture toughness and crack propagation patterns in metals and ceramics.

Proteins like collagen are the basic building blocks of various body tissues (soft and hard). Collagen molecules find their presence in the skeletal system of the body where they bear mechanical loads from different directions, either individually or along with hydroxy-apatite crystals. Therefore, it is very important to understand the mechanical behavior of the collagen molecule which is subjected to multi-axial state of loading.

The capability to sense and respond to external mechanical stimuli at various timescales is essential to many physiological aspects in plants, including selfprotection, intake of nutrients and reproduction. Remarkably, some plants have evolved the ability to react to mechanical stimuli within a few seconds despite a lack of muscles and nerves. The fast movements of plants in response to mechanical stimuli have long captured the curiosity of scientists and engineers, but the mechanisms behind these rapid thigmonastic movements are still not understood completely.

The below position is still open:

Job Description

Responsibilities: You will closely collaborate with Schlumberger design engineers in US, Europe, and Asia. You will be performing FEA studies in technically challenging areas such as non-linear solid mechanics, metal plasticity, viscoelastic materials, shock, vibration, heat transfer, composites, and fluid/structure interactions. You will also need to present FEA results to various internal or external clients.

Requirements

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a symposium on “Fatigue and Fracture Under Extreme Environments” at the SEM XIII International Congress meeting which is taking place at Orlando, FL from June 6-9, 2016.

This symposium will focus on the following themes:

Available online 4 August 2015

In Press, Accepted Manuscript — Note to user

Recrystallization is one of the most important physical phenomena in condensed matter that has been utilized for materials processing for thousands of years in human history. It is generally believed that recrystallization is thermally activated and a minimum temperature must be achieved for the necessary atomic mechanisms to occur. Here, using atomistic simulations, we report a new mechanism of dynamic recrystallization that can operate at temperature as low as T = 10 K in metals during deformation.

The 2014 Drucker Medal paper by Professor Lallit Anand (MIT) is published in the November, 2015 issue of JAM.  The paper is attached.

The point group symmetry of materials is closely related to their physical properties and quite important for material modelling. However, superlattice materials have more complex symmetry conditions than crystals due to their multilevel structural feature. Thus, a theoretical framework is proposed to characterize and determine the point group symmetry of non-magnetic superlattice materials systematically. A variety of examples are presented to show the symmetry features of superlattice materials in different dimensions and scales.