research

Energy, Control and Optimization (ECO) https://www.ecolab.tamu.edu/ in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University has two open PhD positions. The research project is about energy conversion in Nano-materials and thin film solar cells. Candidates should have a strong background and interests in Radiative Heat Transfer, Nano-Materials, Nano fabrication, Computational Methods and Machine Learning. Programming experience in MATLAB or Python is necessary.

V. Slesarenko and S. Rudykh, Towards mechanical characterization of soft digital materials for multimaterial 3D-printing. Int. J. Eng. Science, 123, 62–72 (2018)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2018.8

Abstract

Topology optimization is used to obtain a magnetic source distribution providing levitation of a diamagnetic body or type I superconductor with maximized thrust force. We show that this technique identifies non-trivial source distributions and may be useful to design devices based on non-contact magnetic suspension and other magnetic devices, such as micro-magneto-mechanical devices, high field magnets etc.

If you have seen the very nice PNAS paper which just appeared

Sahli, R., Pallares, G., Ducottet, C., Ben Ali, I.E., Al Akhrass, S., Guibert, M., Scheibert, J., 2018, Evolution of real contact area under shear, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(3), pp. 471-476.

Here we provide a simple explanation.

FACTA UNIVERSITATIS

Series: Mechanical Engineering

DOI: 10.22190/FUME180108007C

Short Communication

FRACTURE MECHANICS SIMPLE CALCULATIONS TO EXPLAIN SMALL REDUCTION OF THE REAL CONTACT AREA UNDER SHEAR

UDC 539.6

I hope some of you find this work interesting, the code with the control algorithm (Segurado and Llorca, 2004) to avoid convergence problems in cohesive zone model analyses of crack propagation can be downloaded from empaneda.com/codes (documentation and Abaqus input files are provided).

Non-local plasticity effects on notch fracture mechanics

Emilio Martínez-Pañeda, Susana del Busto, Covadonga Betegón 

Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics (2017)

Auxetic materials with negative Poisson's ratios have important applications across a broad range of engineering areas, such as biomedical devices, aerospace engineering and automotive engineering. A variety of design strategies have been developed to achieve artificial auxetic materials with controllable responses in the Poisson's ratio. The development of designs that can offer isotropic negative Poisson's ratios over large strains can open up new opportunities in emerging biomedical applications, which, however, remains a challenge.

A continuum-based model is presented for the mechanics of bidirectional composites subjected to finite plane deformations. This is framed in the development of a constitutive relation within which the constraint of material incompressibility is augmented. The elastic resistance of the fibers is accounted for directly via the computation of variational derivatives along the lengths of bidirectional fibers. The equilibrium equation and necessary boundary conditions are derived by virtue of the principles of virtual work statement.