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Fall 1998 - Spring 1999 CNA Seminars
• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, September 17, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• Thomas Boehlke,
Institute of Mechanics, Otto-von Guericke-University,
Magdeburg, Germany

TITLE: Deformation Induced Elastic Anisotropy of F.C.C. Polycrystals''

ABSTRACT: The influence of large inelastic deformations on the macroscopic elastic behavior is investigated for polycrystalline copper using the representative volume element technique A tensorial and a scalar quantity describing the deviation from the isotropic elastic state is formulated for polycrystals. Furthermore an isotropy condition for aggregates of cubic single crystals is expressed in terms of crystal orientations. Exact and approximate solutions are presented. The texture dependent deviation from the isotropic elastic state is estimated in terms of stiffnesses, compliances, stresses, and strains. The texture induced anisotropy is studied by an eigenvalue and eigenvector analysis of the macroscopic elasticity tensors.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, September 29, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• Anthony Kearsley,
Carnegie Mellon University
Department of Mathematical Sciences

TITLE: Optimization Applied to the Simulation of a Micromagnetics Problem of Current Interest to the Recording Industry ''

ABSTRACT: Being able to accurately simulate the magnetizing (or demagnetizing) of a continuous medium would benefit many areas of the recording industry. This process can be described by Brown's equations. Formulating these equations in a discrete form that can be used to arrive at a numerical solution on a computer is a difficult problem. In this talk, I will give an introduction to an ongoing effort to cast this problem as an optimization problem. I will discuss some difficulties and some small successes encountered to date in the effort.

• 4:30 P.M., TUESDAY, October 20, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• David G. Schaeffer,
Duke University
Department of Mathematics

TITLE: "Good grief, Charlie Brown, what's a PDE guy like you doing messing around with fractals?"

ABSTRACT: We study an initial/boundary-value problem for a fully nonlinear system which describes the propagation of plane shear waves in a three-dimensional soil, assuming a hypoplastic flow rule. This model was derived to study liquefaction of soils. For a periodic square-wave disturbance on the boundary, the solution is found to saturate to an asymptotic state (away from the boundary). We determine the asymptotic state in terms of the initial and boundary data. In the case of velocity boundary conditions, this asymptotic state has a fractal dependence}on the shape of the square wave! In the case of stress boundary conditions, the dependence is perfectly smooth.

• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, October 22, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• Morton E. Gurtin,
Carnegie Mellon University
Department of Mathematical Sciences

TITLE: "On a Gradient Theory of Crystalline Plasticity''

ABSTRACT: This work develops a general theory of crystalline plasticity based on:

1. a collection of slip systems for dislocation glide;

2. microforces for each slip system consistent with a microforce balance;

3. a mechanical version of the second law that includes, via the microforces, work performed in the rearrangement of atoms as described by the microshear-rates on the individual slip systems;

4. a rate-independent constitutive theory that includes dependencies on plastic-strain gradients.

A central result is the equivalence of the microforce balances and yield conditions for the individual slip systems. In contrast to standard theories, the yield conditions account for variations in the free energy due to slip. When the free energy is the sum of an elastic strain energy and a defect energy quadratic in the plastic-strain gradient, the resulting theory has a form identical to the standard theory of crystalline plasticity, except that the yield conditions contain an additional term involving the Laplacian of the plastic strain.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, October 27, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• Omar Ghattas,
Carnegie Mellon University
Computational Mechanics Lab,
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

TITLE: "Towards Rational Blood Flow Modeling"

ABSTRACT: The microstructure of blood, particularly the presence of red blood cells, induces complex non-Newtonian flow behavior at macroscopic scales, the most notable of which are shear-thinning, viscoelasticity, shear-induced anisotropy, and inhomogeneous distribution of the cellular phase in the flow. This talk will discuss a new joint CMU-UPMC initiative that aims to develop models and algorithms for simulating blood flow at macroscopic, mesoscopic, and microscopic scales. The driving application is the design of a new generation artificial heart device.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, November 5, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• Richard Jordan,
Los Alamos National Lab

TITLE: "A Statistical Model of Coherent Structures in a Class of Nonlinear Schrodinger Equations"

ABSTRACT: A striking feature of many turbulent fluid and plasma systems is the tendency to form macroscopic organized structures while simulatneously developing intricate fluctuations on fine spatial scales. A familiar, and much-studied, example of this phenomenon is the appearance of large-scale vortices in a turbulent large Reynolds number fluid. In this talk, we will focus on another class of nonlinear pdes that exhibit the tendency to develop large-scale coherent structures in the midst of microscopic disorder. This is the class of 1-dimensional nonlinear, nonintegrable wave systems described by a nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation of the form $i \psi_t + \psi_{xx}+ f(|\psi|^2) \psi = 0$, for various nonlinearities $f$.

First, we will demonstrate through the results of direct numerical simulations that, for a wide range of initial conditions, the field obeying such a NLS equation in a bounded spatial domain relaxes in the long-time limit into a coherent soliton-like structure coupled with small-scale fluctuations, or radiation. Next, we will present a new mean-field statistical mechanics model of coherent structures for this class of NLS equations. In accord with the numerical simulations, this statistical theory predicts that the NLS dynamics approaches a long-time state consisting of a large-scale stable solitary wave coupled with small-scale local Gaussian fluctuations. Further comparisons between the simulations and the theory will be made.

This is joint work with C. Josserand, University of Chicago; B. Turkington, University of Massachusetts; C. Zirbel, Bowling Green State University.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, November 10, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• Gilles Francfort,
LPMTM,
Universite Paris Nord

TITLE: "3d-2d Asymptotics via energetic methods"

ABSTRACT: This is joint work with I. Fonseca, and also partly with Kaushik Bhattacharya and Andrea Braides. After a general discussion of the merits of various scalings in 3d-2d asymptotics, a few models are explored in a nonlinear setting. They all give rise to membrane-like behaviors whose corresponding energy densities are explicitly computable from their bulk analogues.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, December 8, 1998, in Room PPB 300

• Juan J. Manfredi
Dept. of Mathematics
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA

TITLE: "The infinite Laplacian versus the eikonal equation in the Heisenberg group"

ABSTRACT: In Euclidean space the standard metric induces a distance $d(x,0)=|x|$ that, except at $x=0$, it is a solution of the eikonal equation and the infinite Laplacian. In the Heisenberg group there are a variety of choices for an invariant metric. The so called Carnot-Caratheodory distance is a solution of the eikonal equation and it is also infinite harmonic, but it is not easy to compute explicitly. Other choices of metrics are not solutions of the eikonal equation, but they still are infinite-harmonic.

Friday, January 15, 1999

This workshop will address structured deformations as a new tool for describing both smooth and non-smooth geometrical changes at more than one length scale, including, for example, (i) the shearing of a single crystal at both macro- and mesolevels and (ii) the deformation of a bar at the macrolevel by means smooth extension and fracture.

Some of the related issues to be discussed include:

energetics and constitutive relationds, relaxed energies, second order structured deformations, three-level structured deformations, structured motions, single crystals, plastic deformations, hardening, P-L-C effect, defects, slip.

• CNA Structured Deformations Workshop, January 13, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• 1:30 - 2:30
David Owen and Irene Fonseca
Center for Nonlinear Analysis
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

2:30 - 3:30
Gianpietro Del Piero
Instituto di Ingegneria
Universita degli Studi di Ferrara
via Saragat 1
44100 Ferrara, Italy

3:30 - 4:30
Christopher Larsen
Worcester Polytechnic Inst.
Worcester, MA 01609

• CNA Structured Deformations Workshop, Friday, January 15, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• 1:30 - 2:30
Luca Deseri
Professor
Universita degli Studi di Ferrara
Istituto di Ingegneria
Via Saragat 1
44100 Ferrara, Italy

2:30 - 3:30
Roberto Paroni
Center for Nonlinear Analysis
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, January 14, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Elena Litsyn,
The Research Institute
The College of Judea and Samria
Ariel, Israel

TITLE: "Stabilization of Linear Differential Systems via Hybrid Feedback Controls"

ABSTRACT: We study so-called "hybrid feedback stabilizers" for an arbitrarily general system of linear differential equations. We prove that under assumptions of controllability and observability there exists a hybrid feedback output control which makes the system asymptotically stable. The control is designed by making use of a discrete automation has infinitely many locations, but it gives rise to a "uniform" (in some sense) feedback control. The approach we propose goes back to the classical feedback control technique combined with some ideas used in the stability theory for equations with time-delay.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, January 26, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Loukas Grafakos,
Department of Mathematics
University of Missouri

TITLE: "Almost diagonal conditions for multilinear operators"

ABSTRACT: Using discrete decomposition techniques, multilinear operators are naturally associated with tensors. An intrinsic condition on the entries of such tensors is introduced and is used to prove boundedness for the corresponding operators on a variety of spaces, including Lebesgue, Sobolev, and Hardy.

• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, January 28, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Mark Perlin,
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University

TITLE: "TBA"

ABSTRACT: TBA

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, February 2, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Mark Perlin,
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University

TITLE: "TBA"

ABSTRACT: TBA

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, February 9, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Raphael Cerf,
CNRS, Universite Paris Sud
Paris, France

TITLE: "Large deviations and Wulff construction in three dimensional percolation"

ABSTRACT: We consider Bernoulli bond percolation on the three dimensional lattice in the supercritical regime. We prove the existence of a macroscopic surface tension which allows us to establish a large deviation principle for the rescaled configuration. This leads to a verification of the classical Wulff construction from a microscopic point of view.

• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, February 11, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Francois Murat,
Laboratoire d' Analyses Numerique
University Pierre et Marie Curie
Place Jussieu
75252 Paris Cedex 05, France

TITLE: "Renormalized solutions of nonlinear elliptic equations with general measures in the right hand side"

ABSTRACT: In this conference I will report on joint work with Gianni Dal Maso, Luigi Orsina and Alain Prignet. We introduce a new definition of solution (the renormalized solution) for the nonlinear monotone elliptic problem $$-div (a(x, D u)) = \mu \; in \Omega, \quad u = 0 \; on \partial \Omega,$$ where $\mu$ is a Radon measure with bounded total variation on $\Omega \subset \rn$ and $u \mapsto -div (a(x, D u))$ is a monotone operator acting on $W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)$. We prove the existence of a renormalized solution, a stability result (the strong convergence in $W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)$ of the truncations) and partial uniqueness results.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, February 16, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Andrea Braides,
CNRS, SISSA, Classe di Matematica
Trieste, Italy

TITLE: "Approximate variational models for brittle fracture"

ABSTRACT: Even simple variational models for brittle fracture problems relying on Griffith or Barenblatt approaches lead to heavy numerical computation problems and to theoretical difficulties in defining crack evolution. The main difficulty of course comes from handling the fracture site. To overcome these drawbacks, many approximations of energies depending on bulk and surface terms by energies defined on smoother functions are proposed, some of which having a mechanical interpretation, including:

- discrete models with long-range interaction - singular perturbation - non-local models - approximation by damage.

Some of these approximations are motivated and inspired also by their applications to Computer Vision, where energies formally similar to those in Fracture Mechanics intervene.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, February 23, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Sergio Gutierrez,
Dept. of Mathematics

TITLE: "Laminations in Linearized Elasticity: the isotropic non-very strongly elliptic case"

ABSTRACT: The explicit computation of the effective elasticity tensor of the material produced by laminating two homogeneous elastic media is used to show that, in 2-D and 3-D linear elasticity, for any isotropic material a whose elasticity tensor is strongly elliptic, but not semipositive definite, we can select very strongly elliptic materials, so that through laminations between these with material a, we can create a non-strongly elliptic media, whose existence contradicts properties concerning the propagation of elastic waves.

We will also comment on the agreement between this result using only rank one laminates and the range of values of the Lame parameters for which the example of Le Dret still works.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, March 2, 1999, Room: TBA

• James Greenberg
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University
TITLE: "Cocktails for Two"

ABSTRACT: In this talk I shall discuss various techniques for modelling solidificationand melting problems. Most of my effort will focus on the phase field equations

$$\frac \partial {\partial t}(T+p)-a^2\bigtriangleup T=0\;,\;(x,y)\in \Omega \hspace{1.0in} {(\rm Con Energy)}$$

$$\alpha \delta \frac{\partial p}{\partial t}-\lambda ^2\delta ^2\Delta p=T-p(p^2-1)\;,\;(x,y)\in \Omega \hspace{0.3in} {\rm (Ph. Field)}$$

$$\frac{\partial T}{\partial n}=\frac{\partial p}{\partial n}=0\;,\;(x,y)\in \partial \Omega \hspace{1.0in} {\rm (BC)}$$

which may be used to model the energy balance in multiphase systems (liquid-solid or gas-liquid). I will (i) contrast and compare the behavior of solutions of the above systems to sharp interface'' approximating systems, (ii) present some new estimates which characterize the long-time behavior of solutions of the phase-field'' equations, and (iii) show some interesting computations which demonstrate these theorems.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, March 9, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Giovanni Leoni
Professor
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Avanzate
Corso Borsalino 54
15100 Alessandria
Italy
TITLE: "On lower semicontinuity of multiple integrals with respect to local convergence in $L^1$"

ABSTRACT: We present some new results, obtained in collaboration with I. Fonseca, on lower semicontinuity of multiple integrals $F(u,A):= \int_A f(x,u,Du) dx$ with respect to local convergence in L^1. We are particularly interested in those cases where very weak growth and continuity (in (x,u)) conditions are imposed on the energy density f, and coercivity is not available. Our approach is based on blow-up arguments, the global method for relaxation'' proposed by Bouchitte' Fonseca and Mascarenhas, and approximation results due to Dal Maso and Sbordone in the scalar case, and to Kristensen in the vector-valued setting.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, March 16, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Fabio Bagagiolo
Postdoctoral Associate
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
TITLE: "Hysteresis in filtration through porous media"

ABSTRACT: An evolution problem is studied for filtration through porous media, accounting for hysteresis in the saturation versus pressure constitutive relation. A weak formulation of the problem is given, assuming that the memory effect in the constitutive relation consists not only of a rate-independent component but also of a rate-dependent one. Finally, an existence result is proved, in the case where the hysteresis operator is of Preisach-type. TITLE: "A parabolic nonlinear initial value problem with data given by measures"

ABSTRACT:We consider equations of the form $(*) u_t - Laplacian(u) +|u|^{q-1}u = 0$ with $q>1$. We discuss the notion of initial trace for arbitrary positive solutions of $(*)$ in $R^n x R_+$ and the corresponding initial value problems.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, April 1, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Roger Lewandowski
Professor
Universite Paris 10
Nanterre, France
TITLE: "Primitive equations for the ocean with additional pressure terms"

ABSTRACT: Taking into account the pressure dependance in the state law for the ocean's density, we show how to introduce additional pressure terms in the primitive equations for the ocean. Then, we prove an existence result for the deduced system of PDE.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, April 6, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Bianca Stroffolini
Professor
University of Napoli "Federico II"
TITLE: "A vector-valued commutator Theorem and applications to P.D.E. with unbounded coefficients"

ABSTRACT: We prove a generalization to the vector-valued case of the Coifman-Rochberg-Weiss Theorem about commutators with BMO functions. This result will be applied to get Lp estimates for linear elliptic systems with BMO coefficients.

• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, April 8, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Olivier Pironneau
Professor
Analyse Numerique 55-65
5 Place Jussieu Boite 187
University Paris 6
75252 France
TITLE: "Domain Decomposition Methods for CAD"

ABSTRACT: Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) in CAD leads to Domain Decompositions which are based on primitive shapes, as briefly explained in the introduction below. A special role is played by "holes", which can be viewed in several different ways. We combine this remark with the method of Virtual Controls. In one approach the distributions resulting from the decomposition and Green's formula are thought of as virtual controls -- in another the virtual controls are introduced a priori with support in the holes, or outside the domain, or in the intersections of the domains. They are then chosen so as to (approximately) satisfy the Boundary Conditions, which is possible by virtue of approximate controlability results. These ideas are presented here on an example which is certainly not the most general one but which is sufficient to show how everything extends to very many other situations.

This research is in collaboration with J.L. Lions.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, April 13, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Antonio Gaudiello
Carnegie Mellon University
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
TITLE: "Homogenization of a monotone problem in a domain with oscillating boundary" (with D. Blanchard and L. Carbone)"

ABSTRACT: We study the asymptotic behaviour of the following nonlinear problem: $$\left\{ \begin{array}{lll} -div(a( Du_h))+ \vert u_h\vert^{p-2}u_h =f\ \ {\rm in }\ \Omega_h,\\ a( Du_h)\cdot\nu = 0\ \ {\rm on }\ \partial\Omega_h, \end{array} \right.$$ with $a$ monotone, in a domain $\Omega_h$ of $R^n$ whose boundary $\partial\Omega_h$ contains an oscillating part with respect to $h$ when $h$ tends to $\infty$. The oscillating boundary is defined by a set of cylinders with axis $0x_n$ that are $h^{-1}$-periodically distributed. We prove that the limit problem in the domain corresponding to the oscillating boundary identifies with a diffusion operator with respect to $x_n$ coupled with an algebraic problem for the limit fluxes.

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, April 20, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Georg Dolzmann
Professor
California Institute of Technology
TITLE: "Minimal energy configurations of elastic crystals and quasiconvex hulls of sets"

ABSTRACT: In recent years many interesting properties of alloys (like InTl or CuAlNi) have been successfully explained by minimization of a suitable free energy functional. The mechanical properties of these materials are related to certain convex hulls of the zero set $K$ of the underlying energy density. In this talk we discuss these hulls for the simplest case of physical interest, i.e. for $K=SO(3)U_1\cup SO(3)U_2$. This is joint work with B. Kirchheim, S. Mueller and V. Sverak.

• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, April 22, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Zhiping Li
Professor
Mathematical Sciences,
Peking University,
P.R.CHINA,
currently visiting
Department of Mathematics,
Penn. State University,
University Park, PA.
TITLE: "Some numerical methods for the computation of crystalline microstructures"

ABSTRACT: Rotational transformation method, mesh transformation method, periodic transformation method and other numerical techniques for the computation of crystalline microstructures are presented. Numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness of the methods.

• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, April 27, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Lev Truskinovsky
Professor
Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics
University of Minnesota
107 Akerman Hall
110 Union Street SE
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
TITLE: "Entropic elasticity of martensites"

ABSTRACT: In a typical strain test, shape memory wires exhibit a characteristic hardenning on the stage of microstructure development. In experiments, the degree of hardening is often related to the defectiveness or the inhomogeneity of the sample. We suggest a new interpretation of the hardening in martensites as the effect of entropic, rubber-like elasticity. We assume that the sample can be represented as an ensemble of ideal sub-samples and adopt a canonical distribution wich introduces a new parameter with the dimension of temperature. This parameter characterizes the degree of defectiveness of the sample. At zero effective temperature we recover the results of the classical energy minimization. At finite temperatures the usual statistical averaging produces the desired hardenning as a result of strain dependence of the configurational entropy. This effect is intimately related to the non-convexity of the energy and is absent if the energy is quadratic.

• 1:30 P.M., THURSDAY, June 24, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Paolo Podio-Guidugli
Professor
Ecole Polytechnique
Dipartimento di Ingeneria Civile
Universita di Roma "Tor Vergata"
TITLE: "Dissipation Mechanisms in Micromagnetics"

ABSTRACT: TBA

• 1:30 P.M., TUESDAY, August 31, 1999, in Room PPB 300

• Philippe LeFloch
Professor
Ecole Polytechnique
Palaiseau, France
TITLE: "TBA"

ABSTRACT: TBA