Spring 2011, Tuesday and Thursday 10:00 am - 11:30 am, Cruft Lab 309. First meeting of the class:  25 January 2011

• Instructor: Zhigang Suo, 617-495-3789, suo@seas.harvard.edu, Pierce Hall 309.
• Office hour: Tuesday 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm.
• No textbook is required.

This is a second graduate course in solid mechanics.  The course builds on elements of thermodynamics, and explores coupled mechanical, thermal, electrical and chemical actions.  The course draws heavily upon phenomena in soft active materials.

This page is updated for ES 241 taught in Spring 2011. See also

• ES 241 taught in Spring 2007
• ES 241 taught in Spring 2009

Topics

• Isolated systems
• Temperature
• Heat conduction
• Free energy
• Pressure
• Finite deformation:  special cases
• Finite deformation:  general theory
• Chemical potential
• Elastomer in equilibrium with forces and solvent
• Poroelasticity, or migration of matter in elastic solids
• Dielectric elastomers

Optional topics

• Linear viscoelasticity (This topic is covered in ES 240.  Please read the notes on your own.)
• Finite deformation of viscoelastic materials
• Electric potential
• Deformation and polarization
• Electrochemical potential
• Polyelectrolyte gel
• Linear perturbation
• Heat conduction and finite deformation
• Boltzmann distribution
• Entropic elasticity of elastomers
• Models of solution
• Instabilities
• Complex variable methods
• String and elastica
• Plate

Homework

Remarks

• Prerequisite: ES 240 Solid Mechanics or equivalent.
• Keep your own notes.  I'll post my notes online. My notes are mainly written for me, and are not self-contained. As such, my notes may present a distorted view of the subject and of the course.  In particular, many figures are missing in my notes.
• Subscribe to the RSS feed of the course, http://imechanica.org/taxonomy/term/527,529,5955/0/feed
• Subscribe to the RSS feed of the comments on posts related to this course, http://imechanica.org/crss/term/527

Online resources

• Allan F. Bower, Applied Mechanics of Solids
• Rohan Abeyaratne, Lecture notes on the mechanics of elastic solids
• James R. Rice, Items developed for teaching
• Zhigang Suo, ES 240 Solid Mechanics
• Konstantin Volokh, Mechanics of Soft Materials:  Lecture Notes
• John Willis, Stability of media and structures