PhD positions are available starting Fall 2009.

Michigan State University, Department of Mechanical Engineering

If you have strong interest in Solid Mechanics and Nature, write to me after applying to MSU Graduate School for admission.

Desirable qualities: Innovative, strongly motivated and interested in understanding how nature works and applying the same for mechanics based problems

The research will focus on biomimetic design of composite materials. 

My contact email is tsarjun@egr.msu.edu

www.egr.msu.edu/~tsarjun

The Department of Mechanical Engineering seeks candidates for a tenure-track faculty position in the field of Solid Mechanics to begin July 1, 2009 or thereafter.  Appointment would be at the assistant or untenured associate professor level. In special cases, a senior faculty appointment may be possible.  Candidates should have a strong foundation in Solid Mechanics,  and should hold an earned Ph.D. in mechanical engineering or a related field  by the beginning of the appointment.  Faculty duties include teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels, research, and supervision of student research. Candidates should be ready to teach Mechanics of Materials at the undergraduate level, as well as Solid Mechanics subjects at an advanced graduate level.

10th US National Congress on Computational Mechanics

July 16-19, 2009. Columbus, Ohio

Minisymposium on Multi-scale computation and modeling of defects in materials

(Symposium 2.2.6)

Don't know why the post to the journal club won't show up, post it here instead.

In addition to the tissue engineering application, the study on cell mechanics is also motivated by the interest on the mechanotransduction – the process of converting physical forces into biochemical signals and integrating these signals into the cellular responses. I’d like to add this perspective to the discussion. Understanding the mechanotransduction requires the integration of the measured mechanical properties (stiffness, viscoelastic time constants, etc) and the cell biology; thus, it poses a main challenge to the cell mechanics. 

There will be a mini-symposium entitled "Defects and Microstructure at the Nanoscale and Beyond," at the USNCCM-10 conference in Columbus, OH, July 16 -19, 2009.  This topic is of keen interest to the I-Mechanica community and we hope many of you will join us there. Our goal is to bring together researchers from the mechanics, materials, and physics communities to cross-fertilize research on defect-mediated processes in microstructural evolution, with a focus on both hard and soft materials. 

A new journal in Materials Engineering, with emphasis on mechanical properties, will be launched this year.

The home page is at:

 http://www.serialspublications.com/journals1.asp?jid=438

 Author instruction can be found at:

http://www.serialspublications.com/journals1.asp?jid=438&dtype=1&jtype=

Online submission at:

http://www.serialspublications.com/journal_form.asp?jid=438&jtype=

Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways. An extension to the popular open-source web browser Firefox, Zotero includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways.

Hello! I am a mechanical engineering student and I chose an aspect of a dynamical system exhibiting resonance to model. The focus of the project is on the resonant response of the system.

If the wind has a frequency that matches the natural frequency of a turbine, then the turbine will resonate due to wind. I am working on modelling the resonant response in turbines due to wind in order to simulate the model in MATLAB.  The model will be a simplified one, with the approximations and assumptions listed. For example I will assume that the wind is a periodic, harmonic wave and the system is linear, so it is similar to modelling a mass-damper system or cantilever system since the system is oscillating and being pushed back to its equilibrium position. 

10th US National Congress on Computational Mechanics
July 16-19, 2009. Columbus, Ohio

Minisymposium 2.2.5  Ab Initio and Intermediate Atomistics in Computational Nanomechanics 

Organizers: 

Traian Dumitrica, University of Minnesota

Boris I. Yakobson, Rice University 

Mechaero Group is delighted to offer up to four Aspire & Achieve Scholarships worth Rs.2500/- for the students pursuing mechanical, aerospace and its related engineering courses. This scholarship will help the recipients to support some of their career activities such as higher education entrance fees, further training, job search and other related travel. Applicants should be in their final year of studies leading to a Diploma or Under-Graduate degree qualification from an Indian Institution. Eligible students can obtain the application form and further details by sending an email to Scholarships Committee: OFFICE@MECHAERO.ORG. Completed application along with supporting documents should be received on or before 10 March 2009.

I would like to share the following information to all the iMechanica users interested in using TAUCS a library of sparse linear solvers. TAUCS is among the most used libraries of sparse linear solvers and, to my knowledge, its closest equivalent library is SuperLU. For your reference, TAUCS is used in the commercial software Mathematica by Wolfram Research. Its source code can be downloaded from

http://www.tau.ac.il/~stoledo/taucs

Hello!

I was looking to analytically obtain the local bending stiffness of a uniform selender beam which has been twisted along the longitudinal axis (please note that the beam is not 'pre-twisted', i.e, it not twisted in its unstressed state). The exact problem statement is written below. I would be extremely grateful if I can get directions on how to approach the problem or references where such a problem is addressed. Thank you very much!

Problem statement:

I have an opening for a post-doctoral position starting early next year (Jan 2009) in the broad area of multi-scale mechanics of nano-crystalline (nc) materials. The focus will be on microstructure mediated failure processes in nc materials primarily using continuum mechanics based approaches, but informed by materials science.

If you are interested, please send me (shailendra[at]nus[dot]edu[dot]sg) your CV and the names of at least two references.

Thanks,

~Shailendra

Both positions are in QLD, Australia.

1. Objectives
Development of good practice for Combined below rail and above rail decision model for reducing cost, risks and enhancing rail-wheel life based on:
Rail grinding
Wheel-rail condition monitoring.
2. The aim of the project is to collect already completed research that can be used to inform and improve existing industry practices of wheel-rail friction modification. This will include:
Research that leads to a ranking applicators in order of effectiveness
Comparison of Lubricants
Investigate grease suitability for various lubricators
Evaluating the economics of hi-rail applicators versus fixed curve lubricators.

Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Health
QLD, Australia
Continuing, Full-time

Lecturer - total remuneration range from $78 485 to $93 202 per annum includes salary from $67 081 to $79 660 per annum and employer superannuation plus annual leave loading.

Senior Lecturer - total remuneration range from $96 142 to $110 571 per annum includes salary from $82 173 to $94 505 per annum and employer superannuation plus annual leave loading.

The Faculty is seeking to employ a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Maintenance
Management who would contribute to teaching & learning, research & innovation, governance and professional activities in the field of maintenance management.

Recently I work on Finite Element Modeling of human eye .  And focus on cornea .( the outer transparent layer of human eye) . Based on Its structure which consist of collagen fibers I have to use the Anisotopic hyperelastic model . And I derived the coefficients of
strain energy function which divided into three terms of :  volumetric,isotropic and anisotropic

But I have some troubles to modeling this material in Ansys v.10 Beacause I have to use UMAT subroutine and I have not enough information about how to define material with macro in Ansys.  So would you mind introduce me usefull links about predefined UMAT in Ansys

The Department of Mechanical Engineering seeks an outstanding individual for a full-time tenure-track position in materials science with emphasis on the fabrication of micro and nanoscale materials and devices. Especially encouraged are applicants with interest in sustainable energy. The opening is at the Assistant Professor level but candidates with strong records will be considered for appointment at a higher level.

The scientific goal of the project is to develop a multi-scale computational method that uses a single hierarchical data-structure as basis – involving also multiple fields. Starting from mesoscopic structures (particles or domains) a grid is constructed on a hierarchical, tree-based data structure. The hierarchical approach allows for micro-macro transition, coupling of different fields, and coarsening or refinement – where possible or needed, respectively. Algorithms and methods from various disciplines like graph-theory, computational fluid mechanics, molecular dynamics, astrophysics, etc., have to be combined. A single algorithm with a single data-structure will be implemented to deal with particle and continuum problems at multiple scales simultaneously.

Xi Chen, of Columbia University, won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).  Established in 1996, the Award honors the most promising researchers in the Nation within their fields.  The Award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent career. The 67 awardees met President George W. Bush in the White House on 19 December 2008. 

Xi Chen's award was made "in recognition for his outstanding research involving mismatch damages in thin-films and nano-scale self-assembly; and for his elaborate education and outreach activities, including summer programs for underrepresented high school students." He was nominated by NSF .

Congratulations, Xi Chen!

We are seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral candidate with experience and interest in linear fracture mechanics and fully independent in three-dimensional finite element calculations.

The position offers a good opportunity for a PhD graduate to be confronted with the problems of the industrial world while staying in a high level fundamental research environment.

The position will be for 18 months with a possibility of permanent job placement subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funds.

Entrance upon september 2009.

See attachment. 

There is an entirely new powerful mathematics of mechanical systems in the book "A Generative Theory of Shape" by Michael Leyton published in Springer-Verlag.  The extraordinary thing about this new mathematics is that Leyton bases it on his powerful mathematical theory of intelligence, and this mathematics is shown to give a new framework for understanding scientific disciplines such as quantum mechanics, general relativity, etc., as well as engineering disciplines such as object-oriented software, CAD, robotics, mechanical assembly, kinematics, etc. 

Holidays are coming, and you might have time to play around with new things.  Here is something really cool and really useful.  Early this year, Daniel Suo introduced me to a new online service, Dropbox.  Once you place a file in Dropbox on your computer, the service remembers the file online when the computer is connected to the Internet.  Subsequently, when you connect another computer to the Internet, Dropbox synchronizes the file for you.  The file now exists on both computers.  You can access the file rapidly even when both computers are offline.  The file is synchronized again once you go online.  I have been using Dropbox to synchronize files on my laptop at home and my desktop at work. 

Special issue of the "Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience," edited by Markus Buehler

10th US National Congress on computational mechanics
July 16-19, 2009. Columbus, Ohio

A mini-symposium on

Extended/generalized FEM and other partition of unity based methods 

Call for papers