education

an interesting puzzle: multiscale mechanics

Submitted by Henry Tan on Fri, 03/02/2007 - 21:06

Tan's hot topic series

an interesting puzzle for fun:

Lame’s classical solution for an elastic 2D plate, with a hole of radius a and uniform tensile stress applied at the far field, gives a stress concentration factor (SCF) of two at the edge of the hole. This SCF=2 is independent of the hole radius.

Consider what happened to this concentration factor if the radius a approaches infinitely small. The SCF is independent of a, so it remains equal to two even when the hole disappears.

eXtended Finite Element Method: Short Course Notes

Submitted by John E. Dolbow on Sun, 02/25/2007 - 16:06

education

xfem

short course notes

I taught a short course some time ago on the eXtended Finite Element Method, and thought many people would find the notes useful.

So I've posted them here, in .mov format (as exported with the Apple software keynote). The advantage of this format is that, when you click on one of the .mov files, it should open a separate browser. Clicking in the window will advance the slide. This way you see all the movies, etc, as well as the sequence as it appears when I gave the talk. There is a way to add audio to this format as well - something I may pursue in the future.

Second XFEM short course, July 2007, Lausanne, Switzerland

Submitted by Stephane Bordas on Sun, 02/25/2007 - 11:38

education

fracture mechanics

extended finite element short course

enrichment

openxfem++

After the success of the course in 2005 (45 participants from 15 countries), the EPFL school of continuing education presents the second XFEM course.

NYT Article "The Ultimate Distance Learning"

Submitted by MichelleLOyen on Sun, 02/25/2007 - 09:41

education

distance learning

web 2.0

I stumbled on this article in the NY Times "The Ultimate Distance Learning" (free registration required to view) about the establishment of University distance learning activities within the Second Life online community.

Helpful Math for Continuum Mechanics

Submitted by rohan@mit.edu on Sat, 02/24/2007 - 20:54

education

lecture notes

If you would like a copy of my lecture notes (on matrix algebra, indicial notation, vectors, tensors, vector calculus, groups, curvilinear coordinates and calculus of variations) they are available at

Systematization Schemes for Mechanics and Concept Maps

Submitted by Ajit R. Jadhav on Fri, 02/23/2007 - 09:07

1. Introductory

Recently, there has been some active discussion on topics like:
-- Open-source textbooks
-- Comparing lecture notes
-- Unification of mechanics
-- Wikipedia and Citizendium

iMechanica and Citizendium - the perfect union?

Submitted by Hassan Aref on Fri, 02/23/2007 - 01:35

education

Most visitors/users of iMehanica will be aware of Wikipedia. Well, there is a new project of this kind underway. To quote from its "mission statement":

The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a "citizens' compendium of everything," is an experimental new wiki project. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on that model by adding “gentle expert oversight” and requiring contributors to use their real names.

Notes on Fracture of Thin Films and Multilayers

Submitted by John W. Hutchinson on Thu, 02/22/2007 - 14:29

Lecture note of fracture mechanics of thin films and multilayers given at the Technical University of Denmark.

Reproducing Kernel Methods

Submitted by V.Gnanaraj on Wed, 02/21/2007 - 04:41

education

I am working in the field of microfluidics. I wish apply Reproducing Kernel Method to solve flow problems. Can anybody help me to send the paper "Reproducing Kernel Methods ", Wing Kam Liu, Sukky Jun, Yi Fei Zhang, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, Vol.