The following Material Point Method (MPM) simulation of sloshing fluid goes “haywire” at the end, just when things are starting to settle down:
(if the animated gif isn’t visible, please wait for it to load)
Tag Archives: simulation
Uintah Simulations of Perforation Experiments
ABSTRACT: A simulation of a simple penetration experiment is performed using Material Point Method (MPM) through the Uintah Computational Framework (UCF) and interpreted using the post-processing visualization program VisIt. MPM formatting sets a background mesh with explicit boundaries and monitors the interaction of particles within that mesh to predict the varying movements and orientations of a material in response to loads. The modeled experiment compares the effects of an aluminum sphere impacting an aluminum sheet at varying velocities. In this work, the experiment called launch T-1428 (by Piekutowski and Poorman) is simulated using UCF and VisIt. The two materials in the experiment are both simulated using a hypoelastic-plastic model. Varying grid resolutions were used to verify the convergent behavior of the simulations to the experimental results. The validity of the simulation is quantified by comparing perforation hole diameter. A full 3-D simulation followed and was also compared to experimental results. Results and issues in both 2-D and 3-D simulation efforts are discussed. Both the axisymmetric and 3-D simulation results provided very good data with clear convergent behavior.
See the link below for the full report.
Publication: A model for statistical variation of fracture properties in a continuum mechanics code
NEWS FLASH: The print version of the Meyer-Brannon paper on statistical variation of fracture patterns in a continuum code (CTH) is now available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2010.09.007.
Perforation with Aleatory Uncertainty of high-pressure strength in an Eulerian Simulation.
Streamline visualization of tensor fields in solid mechanics
Stress net view of maximum shear lines inferred from molecular dynamics simulation of crack growth. Image from http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/VIS.2005.33
Brazilian stress net before and after material failure. Colors indicate maximum principal stress (showing tension in the center of this axially compressed disk). Lines show directions of max principal stress.
A stress net is simply a graphical depiction of principal stress directions (or other directions derived from them, such as rotating them by 45 degrees to get the maximum shear lines.) Continue reading
Funding: CSM group receives $1.1M aimed at military vehicle safety
Stills from YouTube video of buried roadside explosive
As one of four institutions collaborating with the University of Colorado — Boulder, the CSM group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah, will be developing constitutive models for soils, as well as full-scale simulation capabilities in Uintah to predict blast and ejecta from shallow buried explosives (such as roadside improvised explosive devices). The $1.1M slated for CSM work presumes the project will last 5 years. For more information, see the University of Colorado’s press release.
Tutorial: multi-linear regression
The straight line is the linear regression of a function that takes scalars (x-values) as input and returns scalars (y-values) as output. (figure from GANFYD)
You’ve probably seen classical equations for linear regression, which is a procedure that finds the straight line that best fits a set of discrete points 
The pink parallelogram is the multi-linear regression of a function that takes vectors (gray dots) as input and returns vectors (blue dots) as output
The bottom of this post provides a link to a tutorial on how to generalize the concept of linear regression to fit a function 
Course offering: ME 7960 (special topics) Computational Constitutive Modeling
Constitutive modeling refers to the development of equations describing the way that materials respond to various stimuli. In classical deformable body mechanics, a simple constitutive model might predict the stress required to induce a given strain; the canonical example is Hooke’s law of isotropic linear elasticity. More broadly, a constitutive model predicts increments in some macroscale state variables of interest (such as stress, entropy, polarization, etc.) that arise from changes in other macroscale state variables (strain, temperature, electric field, etc.).
Constitutive equations are ultimately implemented into a finite element code to close the set of equations required to solve problems of practical interest. This course describes a few common constitutive equations, explaining what features you would see in experimental data or structural behavior that would prompt you to select one constitutive model over another, how to use them in a code, how to test your understanding of the model, how to check if the code is applying the model as advertised in its user’s manual, and how to quantitatively assess the mathematical and physical believability of the solution.
