Michael Ortiz-Rios - US grants

In recent years researchers have come to believe that in spite of the continued advances in integrated circuit technology, there will be an upper limit to the speed of sequential processors, i.e. computers that process one instruction at a time. An alternate strategy to increase computational speed is to use parallel processing, the use of simultaneous processing of separate streams of data. Thus a most promising line of research would be the development of algorithms for multiprocessors. This equipment grant will provide partial support for the purchase of a 32-node hypercube system by an established group of engineers working in computational mechanics. They have extensive experience with sequential computations but now wish to explore parallel systems. The institutional support is adequate, I recommend support.

Research will be conducted into the inelastic deformation and failure of ceramics in a combined theoretical and experimental investigation. The research will address improved understanding of the development of microcrack structures and corresponding reduction in stiffness of materials. Constitutive equations will be developed for the evolution of damage due to microcrack initiation, growth, and coalescence. Sub- microsecond duration plane-wave experiments will be conducted to verify the theoretical models. The impacted ceramics specimens will be recovered and examined after impact to characterize the development of microcracks. An improved understanding of microcrack development in ceramics and the subsequent effect on stiffness will be applicable to a wide variety of strength/stiffness problems in ceramics.

This grant is for the partial support of an international (IUTAM) symposium on computational mechanics of materials to be held during June 15-18, 1993 at Brown University, Providence Rhode Island, U.S.A. The symposium will allow the presentation of state-of-the-art research findings in the area of computational mechanics of materials to the most outstanding and active workers in that emerging field from academe, government laboratories and industry. This field differs in scope from other branches of computational mechanics by placing a heavy emphasis on micromechanics and material characterization and design. It also utilizes methodologies not employed in other segments of computational mechanics.

9413819 Karniadakis A research group at Brown University, working on aspects of high performance architectures for computational science, will use ARI funds to purchase a state-of-the-art parallel computer for researches involved in: (1) Parallel Algorithims Paradigms; (2) Parallel Methods for Hyperbolic Problems; (3) Parallel Methods for Incompressible Flows.