CREDLab is looking for a postdoc in the area of atomistic mechanics/simulations. Interested candidates may contact Puneet directly.
Computational mechanics, as the name suggests, revolves around "computers" and "mechanics". The main idea in computational mechanics is to study the problems of mechanics by using computers. The problems could be as wide ranging as understanding the response of steel structures under seismic loads to identifying new behavior in nano systems. We have developed in-house codes (in C and MATLAB) for the same. Interesting outcomes are highlighted below:
The laws of thermodynamics have stood the test of time. Their applicability ranges from a quantum scale system to a cosmological system. At small-scales, existing thermodynamic formulations (like the Second Law) have been revised to include fluctuations. We strive to develop new theories and elucidate the relationship between dynamical systems and thermodynamics. Some of our findings have been listed below.
Molecular Dynamics (MD) is a tool to study and visualize the motion of atomistic scale particles. Like, finite element modeling (FEM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), MD involves simulating the system of interest on computers. However, unlike FEM and CFD, the typical length and time scales that can be simulated are of the order of few hundred nanometers and nanoseconds. These simulations use physics-based algorithms. We have successfully developed several algorithms for MD, along with finding unknown flaws in the existing techniques. Some of our findings are listed below.
Multiscale modeling involves studying a problem at multiple scales. While MD is good at simulating small-scale systems, methods such as FEM and SPH are good at simulating macro-scale systems. We are developing techniques to combine the atomistic methods with macroscopic methods for studying several problems.