Consisting of alternating swelling and nonswelling polymeric layers (SLs and NLs), lamellar gels are 1D photonic crystals with tunable optical properties.  The lamellar structure induces a constraint between the SLs and the NLs, resulting in an anisotropic swelling behavior coupled with deformation.

Dear Colleagues,



The International Conference on
Advances in Computational Mechanics (ACOME) aims to present recent
advances, novel techniques, the state-of-the-art developments and
applications in the field of the computational mechanics. 



The conference will be held at the Ton Duc Thang university, Ho Chi Minh City, from 14 to 16  August 2012.

We are pleased to inform you that the new (and last) deadline for submission of abstracts is January 15, 2012.

Dear Colleagues,

we would like to inform you that the Italian Group of Fracture (IGF), engaged in fostering the research in the fields of Fracture Mechanics and Structural Integrity at the national and international levels (IGF is the Italian chapter of the European Structural Integrity Society) has recently setup the following dissemination strategies and activities for 2012:

We report the observation of remarkable electrical self-healing in mechanically damaged ZnO nanobelts. Nanoindentation into intrinsically defect-free ZnO nanobelts induces deformation and crack damage, causing a dramatic electrical signal decrease. Two self-healing regimes in the nanoindented ZnO nanobelts are revealed. The physical mechanism for the observed phenomena is analyzed in terms of the nanoindentation-induced dislocations, the short-range atomic diffusion in nanostructures, and the local heating of the dislocation zone in the electrical measurement. For details, please see

My text, Analytical Fracture Mechanics, is back in print by Dover Publications as of November 2011.

We are looking for a highly motivated candidate for the position of
Research Associate in atomistic/molecular dynamics modelling of
lubricant films.

The research project is computational based and will focus on the atomistic modelling of

• Lubricant and diamond-like carbon used in hard disk drives

The successful candidate will be awarded with a competitive renumeration package based on his/her work experience.

In the continuous theory of defects in nonlinear elastic solids, it is known that a distribution of disclinations leads, in general, to a non-trivial residual stress field. To study this problem we consider the particular case of determining the residual stress field of a cylindrically-symmetric distribution of parallel wedge disclinations. We first use the tools of differential geometry to construct a Riemaniann material manifold in which the body is stress-free. This manifold is metric compatible, has zero torsion, but has non-vanishing curvature.