This is a quick reminder that abstract submission deadline of McMat2015 is approaching. Please submit your abstract by Feb. 23, 2015 at

Http://www.asmeconferences.org/mcmat2015

Profs. Satya Atluri from UC Irvine, Nancy Sottos from UIUC, and Zhigang Suo from Harvard are confirmed Plenary Speakers for McMat2015. One additional plenary speaker from industry will be announced soon.

The US Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM) is calling for nominations for the Gallagher Young Investigator Medal.  The description from the USACM Awards page reads:

As part of the USACM's 13th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics (USNCCM13) to be held in San Diego, California, July 26-30, 2015, we are organizing a minisymposium on

advances and applications in Generalized/Extended Finite Element Methods.

Postdoctoral Fellow Positions: Interdisciplinary Projects between University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania and Argonne National Laboratory 

The Automated Computational Mechanics Laboratory (ACML) at The Ohio State University has an immediate opening for a one-year postdoctoral research associate position. The project is aimed at the application of the finite element method for simulating and optimizing the laser ablation process in aircrafts. The optimization process involves characterizing the optimal laser parameters (e.g., peak power, fluence, intensity, etc.) to maximize the coating removal efficiency while minimizing damage to the substrate material.

We would like to invite you to give a contributed talk at our symposium on “Mechanics and Materials in the Oilfield”, at the ASME IMECE November 13-19, 2015 in Houston, Texas.

Please forward this announcement to others you think may be interested in participating.  

12-25 Mechanics and Materials in the Oilfield

Dear iMechanica,

Last July I posted a journal club entry on overcoming the traditional challenges in mechanically actuating liquid-crystalline elastomers (http://imechanica.org/node/16853). I'm glad to say we finally got our first manuscript regarding this work published in RSC Advances (DOI: 10.1039/C5RA01039J). 

We recently proposed a model for rate and state friction by studying the collective (statistical) behavior of viscoelastic asperities. Various observed features of friction emerge as collective phenomena, without postulating them directly at the microscale. The paper is available at the link below. 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022509614002063

Thank you.

"Hydraulic fracture during epithelial stretching"

I hope some of you may find this work interesting:

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat4206.html 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat4206