UNM mechanical engineers develop a new way to solve deformation instability problems

December 11, 2020 - by Sarah Carpenter

University of New Mexico Ph.D. Student Siavash Nikravesh and Mechanical Engineering Professor and Department Chair Yu-Lin Shen, using Center for Advanced Research Computing resources, have developed a new three-dimensional modeling approach to solving deformation problems, making it easier to design a wide variety of products including flexible electronics.

The project is being funded by The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium in the hopes that this technology may be used to design NASA equipment.

The factors that determine exactly how a material will buckle when subjected to force are numerous and complex. These types of calculations, called deformation instability problems, typically require multiple steps of analysis to solve, consuming a great amount of time and resources. Read the full story.