Call for postdoctoral applications in solid mechanics

"Electro-Mechanical modeling of electrical contacts"

Dear colleagues,



I wanted to draw your attention to a paper published last year in PNAS



http://www.pnas.org/content/109/44/17874



where we analyze physical aspects of how euglenoids move



http://euglena.msu.edu/public_html/Movies/Eutreptiella/eutrep2.mov

Skin, the largest organ of the human body, acts as a
multi-functional biophysical interface to the external environment. The serial
interfacial phenomena along the skin/environment conjunction, particularly when
interacting with cosmetic and consumer goods (e.g. razor and shave preparation)
is determined by the interplay between the chemical structure and arrangement
of stratum corneum lipids,
environmental factors (e.g. hydration level) and also the physical
characteristics of skin surface relief. Therefore, the chemical and biophysical
properties of the stratum corneum
need to be considered jointly to approach the complexity of skin tribo-physics.
These technical challenges present outstanding opportunities for high quality

Mechanical losses account for 15% of total energy loss in an
IC engine where 45% of these losses result from friction of piston-ring
assembly. An increase in mechanical efficiency of 10% could lead to improved
fuel consumption of 1.5%. Taking into account the large number of vehicles on
road (30 million in the UK in 2010 according to the Society of Motor
Manufacturers and Traders) and fuel
consumption of 12.5 miles/litre, the potential fuel saving would accrue to
approximated £647 million/annum, which is substantial to the country's economy.

Recently accepted for publication in JMPS:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022509613000884

Job

A full-time post-doctoral position is available within the ERC Starting Grant Project MuSIC -- Modeling and Simulation of Cancer Growth, which is led by Prof. Hector Gomez. The general goal of the project is to develop biophysical models to predict cancer growth.

Requirements

The successful applicant will have a strong background on Medical Image Processing and the Finite Element Method or, preferably Isogeometric Analysis. Knowledge about the biology of cancer, and cancer modeling is desirable.

Benefits

Macroscopic
cracks do not appear as a result of an ideal separation of two adjacent atomic
layers. Just the opposite, cracks appear as a result of the development of
multiple micro-cracks triggered by the massive breakage of atomic bonds. The microcracking
and the bond breakage are not confined to two neighbor atomic planes: the
process involves thousands atomic planes within the representative characteristic
volume of size h. This size defines the width (not the lenth) of the damage
localization zone and it can be called the crack thickness. The knowledge of