Ostoja-Starzewski lectures in Spain

4/6/2017

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In late November, Professor Martin Ostoja-Starzewski gave three inaugural lectures of the 2016-17 graduate program in the Department of Continuum Mechanics and Theory of Structures at the University of Seville, Spain. 
 
The lectures were “Randomness in Continuum Mechanics: Elastic Materials”, “Randomness in Continuum Mechanics: Inelastic Materials”, and “Damage Phenomena in Random Materials”. 
 
“This activity has been motivated by a growing interest in stochastic phenomena in mechanics of materials within the Spanish academia and industry, especially as related to the local Airbus aircraft production,” Ostoja-Starzewski said.
 
An expert in the mechanics of random media and thermomechanics, Ostoja-Starzewski has been a professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering since 2006.
 
Before coming to the University of Illinois in 2006, Ostoja-Starzewski worked in academic positions at McGill University, the Institute of Paper Science and Technology, Michigan State University, and Purdue University. He received his degree in mechanical engineering from Cracow University of Technology in Poland (1977), and his masters (1980) and Ph.D. (1983) in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Canada.
 
Ostoja-Starzewski's main research is in the mechanics of heterogeneous media, fractal structures, continuum mechanics, and thermodynamics. He has also done work blending basic physics concepts with mathematical modeling, analyzing spatio-temporal multiscale dynamics of head trauma based on MRI imaging of the brain, and has co-authored a book on generalized thermoelasticity. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the study of Representative Volume Element (RVE) size with respect to random heterogeneous materials, having written the first book on the subject.

 


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This story was published April 6, 2017.