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MAE
SEMINAR SERIES
A
Meshfree Approach to Analysis of Higher Order Continua
Majid
T. Manzari
Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering
The
George Washington University
Thursday,
March 2, 2006, 1pm
Phillips
Hall 7th Floor Conference Room, #736
Design of structural
systems requires an accurate estimation of the ultimate load bearing
capacity as well a realistic determination of the maximum applied
load. While the ultimate strengths of representative samples of
the material(s) of the structure are routinely measured by standard
laboratory experiments, the use of these measured strengths in the
evaluation of the collapse load of the structure often requires a
careful consideration of the size of the specimen tested in the lab
relative to the size of the structure or structural component. In
fact, there are numerous experimental observations pointing to the
significant impact of size effect on the ultimate bearing capacity of
structures. This has led to the introduction of the concept of
materials with microstructure, which has motivated extensive research
on mechanics of higher order continua. The formulation of
mechanical response of a continuum with microstructure would usually
lead to gradients of displacement that are of higher order than that
needed in the formulation of classical continuum. The presence of
higher order gradients in the governing equations poses significant
challenge to the development of suitable displacement-based finite
element analysis procedures for materials with microstructure.
This presentation will discuss the potential of a particular class of
meshfree methods as a suitable alternative that can effectively be used
for analysis of higher order continua.
Majid Manzari is a
Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at
the George Washington University, where he has served on the faculty
since 1994. From 1986 to 1990 Manzari held a faculty position in
the Engineering School of Tehran University. Professor Manzari
received his undergraduate and Master of Science degrees in Civil
Engineering from Tehran University and his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering
from the University of California at Davis. He has been a
visiting researcher at Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore,
California.
Professor Manzari has
served as an associate editor of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics
of American Society of Civil Engineers, and as the Chair of the
Inelastic Behavior Committee of ASCE Engineering Mechanics
Division. In addition to research in geomechanics, Professor
Manzari has broad interest in mechanics and has conducted research on
constitutive modeling of ferroelectric ceramics, development of mixed
finite elements in hyperbolic heat conduction, and seismic analysis of
structures and soil-structure systems.