iMechanica Recent blog posts Call for Papers: International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies (26 Jun to 1 Jul 2011) Journal Club January 2011: Mechanics and Materials for Solar Energy Brian C. McGuigan and Harley T. Johnson, UIUC The photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion industry continues to make progress toward grid parity; within 3-5 years solar energy may be competitive with fossil fuel energy sources on a cost per watt basis. New forms of lightweight, flexible, off-grid solar energy conversion are also in development. Many of the barriers to further PV development are associated with materials and mechanics issues. For example, in silicon PV technology, which currently makes up more than 80% of the commercial PV market, over 60% of the cost of a PV module is due to the silicon in the PV wafers. This journal club issue presents an overview of PV energy conversion challenges from a mechanics and materials perspective, highlighting a few key issues that may be of interest to iMechanica readers. The key classes of PV energy conversion technologies are briefly described, including silicon PV; other thin film PV technologies; and then multi-junction designs and other third generation technologies such as organic PV. Several cross-cutting issues that apply to multiple PV technologies are also noted. Some of the references below may be useful in understanding PV topics on a broad level, while several citations are somewhat focused and may be more relevant to specific mechanics issues. Controlled 3D Buckling of Silicon Nanowires for Stretchable Electronics F.Xu, W. Lu and Y. Zhu, ACS Nano, 2011, 5 (1), pp 672–678. An interview by ACS Nano (Episode 42: January 2011), Research Scientist Positions Available (Jan. 25 2011) A few vacant positions for Scientists and Senior Scientists are available at the Institute of High Performance Computing, A*Star, Singapore. Responsibilities: Perform industry R&D projects, and work with industry partners to develop research programs. Qualifications: Ph.D in Engineering Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, and Applied Physics. Call for Papers: International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies (26 Jun to 1 Jul 2011) Symposium II : Computational Science of Transport Phenomena in Materials: Methods and Applications Sixth M.I.T. Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics - Focus: Solids & Structures; June 15-17, 2011 Call-for-paper: Symposium on Low Dimensional Carbon NanoMaterials at ASME McMAT-2011 Symposium 7: Low Dimensional Carbon NanoMaterials: Properties and Applications Deadline for abstract submission: 30 Jan. 2011 ISDMM11 - Upcoming Abstract Deadline January 30th 2011 Scientific Committee: USNCCM-11 Mini-symposium on "Multi-scale modeling in contact mechanics" USNCCM-11 Mini-symposium on "Emerging computational methods for transient non-linear problems with multiple temporal scales" Systematic Evaluation of Bonding Strength and Fracture Toughnessess of Adhesive Joints We have carried out systematic experimental tests to evaluate the bonding strength and fracture toughness of adhesive joints. Our work has been published in Journal of Adhesion as one among the collection of papers honoring Prof. David Dillard for receiving the Adhesion Society Award for Excellence in Adhesion Science sponsored by 3M. Application of electrostatic pull-in instability on sensing adsorbate stiffness in nanomechanical resonators Recent theoretical and experimental research showed that the response of micro/nanocantilevers to detect materials is not always simply related to extra mass. Stiffness of adsorbates and surface stress-induced changes in the stiffness, arising from adsorption, can produce frequency shifts that are several times greater in magnitude than those induced by mass loading. Consequently, the calculated adsorbed mass does not fully represent the real adsorbed mass, making the measurements qualitative. » Hamed Sadeghian's blog 1 comment Read more 426 reads 1 attachment Extension limit, polarization saturation, and snap-through instability of dielectric elastomers Program overview available for WOM 2011 - April 3-7, Philadelphia WOM 2011 - 18th International Conference on Wear of Materials. Philadelphia, USA,April 3-7, 2011 Ph.D. Research Position in Mechanical Engineering (Composites/Smart Materials) Ph.D. research assistantship is available in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Qualified applicants should contact Dr. Parsaoran Hutapea (Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering) by email at [email protected] . Postdoctoral position in micromechanics of composites at Risø National Laboratory, Technical University of Denmark Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for a Postdoctoral position in the framework of a research project "High reliability of large wind turbines via computational micromechanics based enhancement of materials performances" at the Risoe DTU. JOB DESCRIPTION: As a postdoc, you will carry out numerical micromechanical modelling of strength, damage and fatigue processes in fiber reinforced UD polymer composites, hybrid composites and nanocomposites. Assistant Professor Position in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Vermont suggest a proposal Hi everyone, I'm a master student of mechanical engineering in the field of applied design. I am looking for a good proposal to convince the university to accept that for my final research. I appreciate that anyone can help me with this. thank you Research Associate Opening at The British University in Egypt Teaching FEM to Biologists/Medics All, Could anyone recommend courses, online materials or text books that would be suitable for teaching the finite element method to someone with a non-engineering background. This request is on behalf of an MD student wishing to use the FEM for modelling the wrist. We're initially looking for introductory materials. Best regards Lee The "Goldilocks" Effect in Fossilized Dinosaur Trackways The following paper is now online: Falkingham P.L., Bates K.T., Margetts L. and Manning P.L. (2011) "The 'Goldilocks' effect: Presevational bias in vertebrate track assemblages", Journal of the Royal Society Interface Authors welcome any comments for future studies! Programme available for 4th International Conference on the Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues Programme available for 4th International Conference on the Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues WOM 2011 - The 18th International Conference on Wear of Materials - New speakers announced Two further speakers have been announced for the Wear of Materials conference: Dr Gary Doll and Prof Greg Sawyer. The conference will take place in Philadelphia, USA,April 3-7, 2011 New book announcement Call for abstracts for a minisymposium on the multiscale constitutive modeling of materials at the 11th US NATIONAL CONGRESS ON The session organizers would like to invite researchers to participate in a minisymposium titled "Multiscale constitutive modeling of materials" at the 11th US NATIONAL CONGRESS ON COMPUTATIONAL MECHANICS (USNCCM 11) to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota from July 25-29, 2011. This session will focus on recent multiscale constitutive modeling techniques including variational methods and energy principles. The topics covered will include the formulation of energy based potentials, variational constitutive updates, model parameters identification, validation and applications. Material models spanning different length scales will be addressed. Targeted themes: - Discrete mechanics for crystalline solids with defects Postdoc position at Michigan State Univ on composite materials (01/2011) We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow to work on the characterization and modeling of mechanical behavior of composite materials. The position is available immediately. The candidates with a Ph.D. in Solid Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering or Materials Science and experience in mechanical testing and analysis of composite materials are encouraged to apply. Interested candidates should send application materials through email.