2011 SCC Dates • May 17-19, 2011

Advanced Seminars • May 16, 2011

Hotel Fira Palace, Barcelona, Spain

 In countries with a moderate seismic hazard, the classical methods
developed for strong motion prone countries to estimate the seismic
behaviour and subsequent vulnerability of existing buildings are often
inadequate and not financially realistic. The main goals of this paper
are to show how the modal analysis can contribute to the understanding
of the seismic building response and the good relevancy of a modal model
based on ambient vibrations for estimating the structural deformation
under weak earthquakes. We describe the application of an enhanced modal
analysis technique (frequency domain decomposition) to process ambient
vibration recordings taken at the Grenoble City Hall building (France).

We have recently published a paper on measurements of the density of geometrically necessary dislocations (GND) associated with wedge indentation of a single face-centered cubic crystal. The deformation field is two-dimensional and there are three effective in-plane slip systems that contribute to the plastic slip. We determine the lower bound on the total GND density with a three micrometer spatial resolution. We also show that in certain regions of the domain, the lower bound on total GND density corresponds to the exact total GND density.

Dear All,

          What do you think is the difference in PhD in Europe, USA? My thesis supervisor used to say "In US it is a deep inspection of a subject, while European PhD is a grand problem solving" What is your opinion on this matter? Is there some basic difference between how a PhD is approached by students and supervisor in both these places? if indeed there is a difference, in your opinion which approach is preferable??

Atul Jain

 The main purpose of this work is to present a new parallel direct solver: Dissection solver. It is based on LU
factorization of the sparse matrix of the linear system and allows to
detect automatically and handle properly the zero-energy modes, which
are important when dealing with DDM. A performance evaluation and
comparisons with other direct solvers (MUMPS, DSCPACK) are also given
for both sequential and parallel computations. Results of numerical
experiments with a two-level parallelization of large-scale structural
analysis problems are also presented: FETI is used for the global
problem parallelization and Dissection for the local

Adhesion has long been an important issue for mechanics and many other disciplines. Its influence spans macro-, micro-, nano- and molecular scales. When size goes down, adhesion plays a more and more significant role. Many important technologies attribute to adhesion, such as transfer printing for advanced microfabrication,  super adhesives inspired by gecko foot hairs, and self-assembly. Adhesion also has strong implications on the behavior of nanomaterials (such as nanotubes and graphenes) and biological system (such as cells).

The GRC on Adhesion
Science will be held from July 24-29, 2011, at Bates College, Lewiston,
Maine, USA. TThe goal of this conference is to encourage communication
and discussion of ideas and new unpublished resutls at the very frontier
of adhesion science, by bringing together outstanding internation
scientists from academia, industry and government, while striving to
expand traditional adhesion science into new directions such as cell
adhesion, bio-inpsired adhesives and soft matter physics and
mechanics.   The GRC offer an exciting opportunity for young
investigators to get involved at the frontier of science.   Attendees
will not only be able to discuss the progress of unpublished research

Chair in Low Carbon Manufacturing, University of Exeter.

The University of Exeter is seeking a full Professor in the field of Low Carbon Manufacturing.

The University is significantly expanding its capacity in Science and Engineering, with 275 million

GBP (approx 440M USD) capital spend on campus and 80M GBP (130M USD) on new academic staff.