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Electronic Newsletters
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DMSE News—February
2002
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FACULTY
HONORS
Professors
Subra Suresh and Klavs Jensen, and DMSE alumnus Dr. Neil Paton
(Ph.D., 1969) have been elected to membership in the National
Academy of Engineering. The election announcement includes these
citations:
Subra Suresh,
R. P. Simmons Professor and Head, Department of Materials Science
and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
For development of mechanical behavior theory and experiment for
advanced materials and applications, and for demonstrating fruitful
new avenues for structural study.
Klavs F. Jensen,
Lammot duPont Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor
of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge. For fundamental contributions to multi-scale
chemical reaction engineering with important applications in microelectronic
materials processing and microreactor technology.
Neil E. Paton,
retired vice president, technology, Howmet Corp., Whitehall, Mich.
For contributions to the development of advanced aluminum and
high-temperature alloys for aerospace applications.
Each deserves
our heartfelt congratulations for their achievements and the honor
conferred by membership in NAE.
A complete
listing
of those newly elected to NAE is available.
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Prof.
Harry L Tuller was elected to serve as a councilor of the
International Society of Solid State Ionics for 2002-2003.
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Congratulations
are sent to NIST Senior Fellow John Cahn for winning the 2002
Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science, a high honor
given by the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia. Dr. Cahn is a former DMSE faculty member and
a mentor and valued friend to many in the department. The citation
for the award reads: "For profound contributions to the understanding
of the thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformations. His
lifelong dedication to understanding materials has inspired generations
of scientists and engineers to develop new materials based on
his groundbreaking theories."
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STUDENT
HONORS
Garry Maskaly,
DMSE Graduate Student, was awarded a Fellowship from the Fannie
and John Hertz Foundation. Of 570 applicants, 21 Fellows were
chosen (4 from MIT) to receive afive year, $200,000 Graduate Fellowship
Award in the Applied Physical Sciences.
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NEWS
MIT's Microphotonic
Center has signed a research pact with Pirelli Labs. Several DMSE
faculty members are affiliated with the Center. This agreement
will lead to advanced research in the field of photonics. More
information can be found in MIT's Tech
Talk.
MIT Alum Daniel
Cabrera attended January's State of the Union address as a guest
of First Lady Laura Bush. Though he received his S.B. in Biology
in 2001, in 1997 he was a student in 3.A04 Introduction to Physical
Metallurgy, a freshman advising seminar instructed by Prof. Sam
Allen and Toby Bashaw. Mr. Cabrera is now teaching science on
a New Teacher Project fellowship at Jefferson Junior High School
in Washington; Mrs. Bush started the New Teacher Program. More
details can be found in Tech
Talk.
Prof.
Linn Hobbs has had a large media presence recently. He was
profiled in the Boston Sunday Globe on January 27 in recognition
of his having been awarded an honorary OBE (officer, Order of
the British Empire) for his years of work on and dedication to
the Marshall Scholarships. The article provides not only a biography
of Prof. Hobbs (and includes a photograph of him with his medal)
but also a good description of the field of materials science,
suitable for the layperson.
Prof. Hobbs'
popular IAP offering "In Vino Veritas" was included
in Tech Talk's
IAP Notebook this year. Over 1500 tasters has partaken in
this class since 1982.
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OBITUARIES
We have received the sad news that
Dr. Thomas C. Wilder, Sc.D. 1962, suddenly passed away on Thursday,
January 31, 2002, at his home in Cambridge, MA. Wilder was educated
at Bowdoin before attending MIT. His interests were in the Thermodynamics
of Alloys and the Extractive Metallurgy of Cu and Cu Alloys. Wilder
was employed by Kennecott Copper Corporation's Ledgemont Laboratories
until its closure, at which time he retired. He held 10 patents
in the areas of chemical and extractive metallurgy and metals
processing and was the Treasurer of the Boston TMS Chapter for
over 25 years.
A memorial service will be held for Thomas C. Wilder on at 2p.m.
Saturday, February 23, 2002, at the First Congregational Church
in Winchester, MA.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Scaling in Solid Mechanics:
From Nano to Mega
Mechanics
Seminar
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Tuesday, Feb. 19, Room 5-234, 4-5 p.m.
Zdenek P. Bazant
W.P. Murphy Professor of Civil Engineering and Materials Science,
Northwestern University
In contrast to fluid mechanics, the deterministic problem of scaling
in solid mechanics (i.e., the change of structural response caused
by a change of size or scale) has long been neglected. One reason
is that the classical theories, such as plasticity, elasticity
with a strength limit, continuum damage mechanics and linear elastic
fracture mechanics, possess no characteristics length. In that
case the scaling is very simple--it is given by a power law. The
problem becomes more interesting in various modern theories that
involve a characteristic length. In that case, the scaling law
is generally a transition from one power law to another. Determination
of the general properties of response in the transitional `scale-bridging'
range, typically the range of practical interest, is usually difficult,
which is why brute-force computational approaches dominate. However,
good approximations of general applicability may often be obtained
by the technique of asymptotic matching--a smooth 'interpolation'
between the opposite asymptotic scaling laws. Development of such
asymptotic approximations began at Northwestern about a quarter
century ago in connection with some special concrete structures,
and recently this approach has been extended to many other materials.
The seminar first raises the question of asymptotic behavior of
Gao, Huang, Nix and Hutchinson's dislocation-based theory of strain-gradient
plasticity on the micrometer scale, which is currently of keen
interest for micro- and nano-mechanics. Certain peculiar features
of the nano-scale extension of the existing theory are identified
and possible remedies pointed out. Subsequently, the size effects
on the milimeter scale, exhibited by kink-band propagation in
fiber-polymer composites and by fracture of polymeric foams, are
examined. Pronounced deterministic size effects on the scales
from decimeter to 'mega-meter', which are encountered, e.g., in
the fracture of sea ice, failure of concrete structures, and triggering
of snow avalanches or mountain slides, are discussed. A variety
of scaling laws for these problems is reviewed, and the interaction
of the energetic and probabilistic size effects is examined. In
closing, it is emphasized that the size effect must have been
a significant contributing factor in some famous structural catastrophes.
For additional information contact Professor Nicolas Hadjiconstantinou,
Room 3-364, x2-2280. Refreshments will be served.
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MICRORHEOLOGY IN TWO
AND THREE DIMENSIONS
Dr. Alex Levine
University of California at Santa BarbaraAbstract: Microrheology
is an important experimental probe of soft materials. By tracking
the Brownian motion of submicron-sized tracer particles, one can
probe over a wide range of frequencies the rheological properties
of complex materials, including those that cannot be produced
in bulk quantities. Because of these advantages, microrheology
promises to open a new window on cellular biology by allowing
one to noninvasively study how cells modify their material properties
over their life-cycle, or in response to their environment. In
addition, this experimental technique is currently being used
by a number of groups to study the high--frequency dynamics of
soft materials (such as semi-flexible polymer solutions) that
are inaccessible by conventional rheology.
In this talk I will focus on two theoretical issues that arise
in the interpretation of microrheological data. The first is that
the complete response function of the probe particle must be understood
to interpret its observed position fluctuations. As examples,
I will examine the thermal fluctuations of a bead trapped in a
polymer gel with viscous solvent as well as those of a bead attached
to a viscoelastic membrane. The second issue is that, since the
probe particle locally perturbs its environment, the observed
fluctuations do not simply measure the properties of the original
system. I show, through an interesting analogy to electrostatics,
that the correlated fluctuations of two widely--separated particles
can be used to determine the bulk, unperturbed properties of the
material and to study the perturbation zone surrounding the probes.
Finally, I conclude with a discussion of ongoing research on theoretical
issues specifically relevant to the application of these techniques
in living cells.Pizza Lunch @ 11:45 A.M.
Seminar @ 12:00 noon
Tuesday, February 19, 2002
MIT Room 12-132
For information, please contact Leonid Levitov at 253-6817 (levitov@mit.edu)
REAL-TIME MICROSCOPY
OF SURFACE PHASE TRANSITION
SJames B. Hannon
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Materials Science Seminar
1:00 P.M., Thursday, February 21st
McKay Lab 402, The David Turnbull Room
Harvard University, 9 Oxford Street
Short Courses On Computational
Thermodynamics and Computational Kinetics at the Pennsylvania
State University in May 2002
For more details,
visit their web site.
Registration fee waived for academic participants.
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Please contact Rachel
Kemper with news and announcements for this page. The DMSE
community will be informed of changes and updates to this page
through regular e-mail notifications. Please see recent award
opportunities and job postings in relevant fields.
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