opinion

Many of us (including myself) have used the nonlinear equations for elastic plates, originally proposed by von Karman (1910). I recently came across a book with some interesting comments about the plate equations, which may be of interest to share with others on imechanica. The book's title is "Plates and Junctions in Elastic Multi-Structures", authored by Philippe G. Ciarlet and published by Springer-Verlag in 1990.

In my opioion, the traditional concrete model is taking the smeared cracking concept to deal with the tensile cracking and using the elastoplastic method to deal with the compressive softening.

We can find that recently the CDM based concrete model become a hot research subject.

But what are the advantages of the CDM-based?

Thank you very much!

From PhDComics via Entertaining Research :

Check out the talk by Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Director , National Science Foundation 
on TAM 

at  http://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/bement/09/alb090424_tamsymp.jsp?govDel=USNSF_51

For the proceedings of the 2008 SBE&S workshop go to

Obama spoke at the National Academy of Sciences on Apr. 27, 2009, in which he states his commitment to doubling of science funding and stem education. From his speech,

 "At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities.  I fundamentally disagree.  Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before."

From PhDcomics

Micromechanics---loosely speaking, is the study of heterogeneities in materials and its consequences for material or continuum behavior. This encompasses studies of inclusions, dislocations, cracks or more generally defects. A related problem is that of "coarse-graining" or in other words the effective homogenized properties of a heterogeneous material. The latter is a recurring theme in all of physical sciences not just solid mechanics. Micromechanics, a formidable subject by all means, dominated a substantial part of the history of solid mechanics. Several of our Timoshenko awardees have been associated with this subject, e.g. Eshelby, Hill, Keller, Irwin, Rice among others.

Hello all,

I am studying some simple finite elements for 2d near-incompressible analysis. Particularly, I am interested in the MINI element. It is basically a 3-node triangle element with nodal pressure and displacement degree of freedoms enriched by a bubble function. Could someone that has some experience with these elements point me out about advantages and drawbacks of using these type of elements?

Thanks,

Alejandro.

In the attachment, we show that Truesdell rate can by simplified to Green-Naghdi rate by assuming F .=. R and can be further simplified to Jaumann rate by assuming W .=. R(.)R(T), where .=. means approximately equal

Lately I am feeling like imechanica is becoming a craigslist for mechanics than a forum. Most recent blogs are simply ads that do not generate any discussion. Neither do questions from people get any reply, not any where near to what it used to be.

The last journal club had about five or so replies and the current one has no comment with two days to end.

Is it just me or does any body else feel the same too? I feel we have to think about how we can have a community here than just a repository of mechanics related stuff.  

Nature recently favorably reviewed a new self-published book, based on a blog , by a "female physical sciences professor" in the US.  While the overarching theme is clearly about being a female in a male-dominated world, the writings on the blog (and in the book) are in many places general and provide lots of good advice and anecdotes about acadmic life.  The