A highly deformable capacitor made of a soft dielectric and two conformal

electrodes can switch between two states discontinuously, by a first-order transition, as the total

charge varies gradually. When the total charge is small, it spreads evenly over the area of the

capacitor, and the capacitor deforms homogeneously. When the total charge is large, it localizes in

a small region of the capacitor, and this region thins down preferentially. The capacitor will

Apples and oranges. Each element in a set is a pile containing some number of apples and some number of oranges.  Adding two piles means putting them together, resulting in a pile in the set. Multiplying a pile and a real number r means finding in the set a pile r times the amount.  We model each pile as a vector, and the set as a two-dimensional vector space over the field of real numbers.

Overview: The peridynamic formulation is a
spatially nonlocal derivative free model for simulating problems of free crack
propagation.Material points interact through short-range forces and the
formulation allows for discontinuous deformations. Here the short-range forces
are initially elastic and soften beyond a critical relative displacement. We
upscale this peridynamic model to find the macroscopic (a.k.a. small horizon)
limit. It is shown that the limiting macroscopic evolution has bounded energy
given by the bulk and surface energies of brittle fracture mechanics. The
macroscopic evolution corresponds to the simultaneous evolution
of the fracture surface and linear elastic displacement away from the crack

It gives me great pleasure to announce the outcome of the 2013 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), Kaushik Bhattacharya (Caltech), Roger Fosdick (Minnesota University), and Yonggang Huang (Northwestern University).

Defective graphene as promising anode material for Na- and Ca-ion battery

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces [ PDF ] 

PhD scholarship is immediately available at the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Australia. Applications are invited for two open positions in one of the following areas: (1) Mechanics of nanotubes and graphene; (2) Multiscale simulation of functionally graded or nanotubes/graphene reinforced composites; (3) Thermal buckling and post-buckling of composite structures. The research work is supported by Australian Research Council under Discovery Projects scheme.

We are looking for a highly-motivated research
fellow to work in the area of applied mechanics and materials.

The project is on energy harvesting using soft active materials. This is a joint effort between the Institute of High Performance Computing (A*STAR), and the National
University of Singapore.  The applicant
must hold a PhD degree, prior post-doctoral experience is not required. Relevant
experience in (1) experiments and/or (2) finite element modeling and simulation
is preferred.

Stochastic modeling of damage evolution in composites under environmental ageing

R. Rahman, A. Haque, Z. Wu

Abstract

This is an introductory post to a discussion on the advantages of multicellular organisms over single-celled eukaryotes from an energy harvesting viewpoint.  It is intended for the New Mexico Tech biomechanics class but others can play.

As engineers we should seek for a numerical measure (or some measures) that allows us to decide how close an organism is to the optimum.  Consider two cases: a seaweed in comparison to a single-cell photosynthetic eukaryote and a herbivore in comparison to a single-celled eukaryotic animal.