Department of Aerospace Engineering

Midwest Mechanics Seminar Series: "Boundary-value problems in the theory of lipid membranes," Professor David Steigmann, Univ. of CA at Berkeley

 

Professor David J. Steigmann
University of California at Berkeley

Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 
1:10-2:00pm
1235 Howe Hall

Boundary-value problems in the theory of lipid membranes 

The mechanics of lipid bilayers is discussed in the context of the theory of elastic shells with fluid symmetry. New contact conditions are developed for lipid membranes interacting with curved substrates along their edges. These include the anchoring conditions familiar from liquid-crystal theory and accommodate non-uniform membranes and non-uniform adhesion between a bulk fluid or membrane and a rigid substrate. The theory is illustrated through explicit solutions and numerical simulations.

Education
-Ph.D. (1988) Brown University, Providence, R.I. (Thesis: Tension-field Theory. Adviser: A.C. Pipkin, Division of Applied Mathematics). 

-M.Sc. (1982) M.I.T., Cambridge, MA. (Thesis: Numerical Simulation of Transient Finite Deformations of Structures. Adviser: E.A. Witmer, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics). 

-B.Sc. (1979) U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. (Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics).

Research Interests
-Mechanics of thin films and thin-film/substrate systems; near-surface wave propagation and energy flux
-Electromagnetic phenomena in solid mechanics; applications to thin-film/substrate problems
-Surface stress, capillary phenomena, biological cell membranes, surfactant films in multi-phase fluid emulsions-Finite elasticity
-Variational methods and elastic stability
-Tensile (membrane) structures
-Continuum mechanics
-Nonlinear three-dimensional mechanics of fabrics
-Numerical analysis of ill-conditioned structural problems
-Thin shells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---