Our invited speaker, Dr. Pedro Ponte Castañeda, the current Raymond S. Markowitz Faculty Fellow and Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, presented his talk, “Nonlinear Composites Materials” on February 16th, 2017.
His current research is in the area of heterogeneous material systems, including composites, polycrystalline aggregates and particulate flows. In the area of composite materials, he addresses nonlinear constitutive and kinematical effects as observed in low-temperature plasticity and high-temperature creep of metal-matrix composites, as well as in the large-deformation behavior of black-filled and porous elastomers. His group is also concerned with the theoretical development of constitutive models for porous metals, accounting for the evolution of the microstructure, which will be useful in assessing the effect of porosity on localization instabilities with applications to ductile failure and manufacturing processes.
This Graduate Seminar was jointly sponsored by the department of Civil Engineering and CISMMS. In his presentation, he discussed a more “homogenization” approach that is based on the notion of “linear comparison composite” making use of the appropriately designed variational principles. During his visit, Dr. Pedro Ponte Castañeda met up with several faculty members from the different engineering departments at JHU-WSE.