A Computational/Experimental Multiscale Approach to the Analysis of Structures Containing Mechanical Joints

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A Computational/Experimental Multiscale Approach to the Analysis of Structures Containing Mechanical JointsMechanical joints are integral to structures, affecting performance and reliability. Joints provide coupling forces and moments between substructures, and introduce localized compliance and dissipation. Aspects of joint dynamics not fully understood include the nature of the slipping process between contacting interfaces, local impacts at mating surfaces away from the connecting elements, sensitivity of response to roughness of mating surfaces, and contaminants and lubricants which introduce uncertainty into the process of response prediction. The proposed research effort includes new developments in scale representation, efficient fine-scale estimation, and interscale coupling. A major contribution of the proposed work will be a systematic spatial decomposition into large and small scales, where the latter are mathematically injected into the calculations for the former. Another will be the representation of the joint interface as a strong discontinuity, leading to interfacial flux terms that provide a natural mechanism for embedding the constitutive laws in a variationally consistent fashion, and novel experiments yielding the required constitutive behavior of the interface. These results will be broadly disseminated, through course materials, conference presentations, and publication in archival journals. Integral with the research effort is a plan for education and outreach, targeting middle school students quickly approaching the age where future career decisions are formed, initially through partnership with Jefferson Middle School in Champaign. Classroom demonstrations and experiments addressing fastener technologies will be developed. Undergraduate and graduate students will be recruited; ideally a broad demographic, for research, to construct demonstrations and experiments, and to mentor middle school students during the school year.