ES242r HW#1 Problem1

I am Namiko Yamamoto, a 1st year PhD student in Aero/Astro department at MIT. I have been Aero/Astro major for both my BS and MS at MIT, also. I have taken ES240 (solid mechanics) with Prof. Suo this past fall, and have taken one solid mechanics class (2.071) at MIT. This is my first time learning about fracture mechanics. My weakness is that I don't know the material well, and even now I need to spend good time to understand the materials given in the lecture (notes and lectures are so helpful). My strength will be my motivation to learn the materials. It has been much fun in the class, and this learning will help me much in my research. For my PhD, I will be studying how to strengthen structural composites with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) under Professor Brian Wardle. In the current design, we will be investigating delamination fractures between prepregs. This class will be so helpful for this research, and further since I want to continue studying in materials/structure field beyong PhD.