MSE 3321: Modeling and Simulation III
This junior-level course is part of a three-year computational lab sequence that was instituted in Spring 2013.
The course meets in our Koffolt Lab computing facility that accommodates up to 72 computational seats with 12 large screen monitors to display student results to the rest of the class. The course is divided into three portions that focus on mechanical properties, processing of materials, and electronic properties. Students use MatLab extensively and learn to model and simulate material behavior in each of these areas. The mechanical properties portion consists of 9 MECH labs:
MECH 1: 1D isotropic thermo-elastic response
MECH 2: 3D isotropic thermo-elastic response
MECH 3: Resolved shear stress and normal stress across crystallographic planes
MECH 4: Fracture and yield of polycrystals
MECH 5: 3D anisotropic thermo-elastic response
MECH 6: Empirical models for stress-strain data
MECH 7: Necking in tensile bars
MECH 8: Visco-elastic response I
MECH 9: Visco-elastic response II (Boltzmann superposition principle)
MSE 3261: Introduction to the Mechanical Properties of Materials
This junior-level course provides a broad introduction to the mechanical properties of ceramics, metals, polymers. This includes an overview of:
- engineering and true stress and strain (3D)
- determining components of stress and strain in different coordinate systems
- isotropic thermo-elastic response
- anisotropic thermo-elastic response and compliance, stiffness constants for single crystals
- uniaxial response of different material classes
- plastic deformation on the crystallographic scale: dislocations, Peierls stress, work-hardening, stacking fault energy
- strengthening mechanisms in metals
- mechanical properties of polymers and biological materials
- statistical approaches to fracture in brittle materials
- creep response at elevated temperature
- introduction to the theory of fracture
- survey of fracture surfaces from a variety of materials and environmental-loading conditions
MSE 4321: Modeling and Simulation Based Design
This two-part senior-level course involves computer modeling of the structure, mechanical properties, and electrical properties of materials. In the mechanical portion, students learn to develop models and compute the stress and strain distributions within deformed single crystals using ABAQUS finite element software. In the structure portion, students learn to compute the free energy, lattice constants, and elastic moduli of crystals as a function of structure and composition, using atomistic software. The course culminates in a design project in which student teams use a combined atomistic and finite element approach to meet the design requirements of a composite, polycrystalline beam with a bamboo grain structure. The teams study the effects of alloy content on elastic constants and the arrangement of grains of different orientation and composition on the bending response of the beam.
MSE 6756.71 Computational Materials Modeling-Continuum Methods
This graduate secondary core course spans over a half-semester (7-week) period. provides an overview of continuum methods in materials science and engineering. The course typically involves a lecture on the theory underlying a method and then a computational lab in which students run codes (typically in MatLab) that implement the method. the following methods are covered:
- techniques to solve differential equations in MatLab
- cellular-automaton method
- dislocation-dynamics method
- phase-field method
- finite-element method
- finite-difference method
MSE 6756 Mechanical Behavior of Materials
This graduate primary core course offers a broad survey of the mechanical behavior of materials, with an emphasis on descriptions of stress and strain, constitutive relations for ceramics, metals, and polymers, and relations between material structure and mechanical properties at room temperature and elevated temperature.
MSE 7862 Microstructural Elasticity
This graduate elective course is offered every other year (e.g., AU 2014, AU 2016) over a half-semester (7-week) period. It presents the formalism to solve for the elastic deformation and stress fields from a variety of defects including solute atoms, dislocations, inclusions, grain boundaries, and cracks. This includes development of the continuum Green’s functions for isotropic, elastic material and also the lattice Green’s function for a simple cubic system.