SEBE: Computational and Experimental Mechanics Laboratory

The laboratory provides (a) an end-to-end facility for characterzing the mechanical and thermal behavior of various materials at different length and time scales, (b) mechanical testing of structural systems, (c) development of constituve models for various materials, and (d) multi-physics finite element analysis. Equipment include closed loop digital servo-controlled MTS and Instron test systems, strain gage excitation and amplification equipment plus LVDTs, signal conditioning devices, contact and non-contact extensometers etc., hydraulic rams for structural testing using a strong floor system, high rate servo-hydraulic MTS test machine for rate dependent tests, high speed Phantom digital camera, impact test set up based on a free-fall drop of an instrumented hammer, and dynamic biaxial test setup with multiple actutators. Custom software development is available for (a) development of object-oriented programs using C++, (b) conversion of FORTRAN codes to C++, (c) development of user material models for incorporation into commercial FE codes such as ABAQUS, LS-DYNA etc., (d) development of high-performance parallel programming codes using OpenMP and MPI, and (e) development of standalone programs using graphical user interface. The lab also provides support in terms of building finite element models and carrying out implicit and explicit finite element analysis.

Contacts: Barzin Mobasher and Narayanan Neithalath