education

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.  

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

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.

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

1. Introductory

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

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":

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

Update: February 2012

1) The lecture notes are on Wikiversity at  http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Waves_in_composites_and_metamaterials

2) The book on the topic can be bought from Amazon at  http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Metamaterials-Waves-Composites/dp/1439841578

3) Solutions and errata can be found at  node/9727

Here is a link to a 1996 book by C.H. Wang on Fracture Mechanics from the DSTO Aeronautical and Maritime Research Laboratory in Melbourne.

http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/publications/1880/DSTO-GD-0103.pdf

J.R.BARBER: INTERMEDIATE MECHANICS OF MATERIALS

Many of you may know my book on Elasticity, but may not be aware that I also wrote an undergraduate book on Intermediate Mechanics of Materials (Published by McGraw-Hill - ISBN 0-07-232519-4). This picks up from the typical elementary Mechanics of Materials course and deals with the next range of topics such as energy methods, elastic-plastic bending, bending of axisymmetric cylindrical shells and axisymmetric thick-walled cylinders. A full Table of Contents and the Preface are given below.

These are the notes I wrote at the Technical University of Denmark in 1979. Zhigang Suo and I will be using these in the course on fracture and thin film mechanics (ES 242r) this spring (2007). This is a joint course with the University of Nebraska.

Time. Thursday and Tuesday. 1:30-3:00 pm (Harvard University), 12:30-2:2:00 pm (University of Nebraska). First meeting: 1 February 2007

Place. Harvard University: Fairchild 102 (map). University of Nebraska: 111 Walter Scott Engineering Center

Course website (this page): node/754