MidMechMat 2018

The Midwest Mechanics of Materials and Structures (MidMechMat) is a one day workshop that aims at bringing together researchers from the Midwest universities and industries working on contemporary topics in mechanics. The workshop is held in an informal setting to facilitate the exchange of ideas and exploration of new collaboration avenues.

This year's workshop will be hosted by Illinois Institute Of Technology Chicago on August 09, 2018. The program includes student oral presentations, a poster session, and invited talks by highly regarded experts in their fields. The invited talks will be organized under two separate (non-parallel) sessions (A, B). Session A will focus on state of the art computational and theoretical techniques in mechanics. This includes variational principles, topology optimization techniques, and also emerging techniques such as data driven mechanics and modern neural network based machine learning approaches in mechanics. Session B will focus on applications areas in contemporary mechanics research including granular media, micro/nanoscale materials and devices, failure, fatigue, and fracture.

Below are the confirmed speakers (in no particular order) with tentative areas.

Confirmed Speakers (A):

Michael Ortiz, CalTech (Data driven mechanics)

Chun Liu, IIT (Variational principles)

George Karniadakis, Brown (Physics informed neural networks)

Xioping Qian, University of Wisconsin Madison (Topology optimization in mechanics)

Confirmed Speakers (B):

Heinrich Jaeger, University of Chicago (self-assembled nanoparticle-based structures, granular materials)

Horacio Espinoza, Northwestern (Natural and synthetic nanomaterials, micro-nano devices)

John Lambros, UIUC (Failure, fatigue, fracture)

The organizers would like to thank the following for their support:

• MMAE department
• Applied Math department
• Armour College of Engineering
• College of Science
• Questek Innovations LLC