Rebecca Brannon - Associate Professor

Phone: 801-581-6623
Fax: 801-585-9828
e-mail: brannon@mech.utah.edu
Office: 2134 MEB (50 S Central Campus Dr)
Lab: 2407 MEB (Ph: 585-9194)

Education

PhD Engineering Mechanics. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dec. 1992. GPA 4.0/4.0. Full fellowship.
Advisor: Dr. Walter S. Drugan.
Graduate dissertation focused on full spectral analysis of non-self-adjoint plasticity acoustic tensors, and on thermodynamic restrictions for dynamically propagating discontinuity surfaces in nonclassical elastic-plastic solids with the applications to steady-state plane-strain crack growth.

M.S. Engineering Mechanics. University of Wisconsin, Madison, May 1988. GPA 3.9/4.0

B.S. Mechanical Engineering. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, May 1987. 3.6/4.0.

Early admission, University of Alabama, Birmingham, 1981, math program.

Research Interests

  • Accuracy/stability/efficiency of plasticity models.
  • Damage and failure (stability analysis, statistical uncertainty, size effects, and mesh-dependence).
  • Poroelasticity and poroplasticity.
  • Penetration and perforation.
  • Rock mechanics.
  • Shock-induced tunnel collapse.
  • Shock-induced depolarization of ferroelectrics.
  • Deformation-induced anisotropy.
  • Effect of anisotropy on boundary conditions and solvers in finite-element methods.
  • Homogenized models for composites.
  • Continuum kinematics for large distortions with applications in biomechanics of calluses.
  • Kinematics of large rotations.
  • Statistical crack mechanics.
  • Curvilinear and Cartesian tensor analysis.
  • Finite-difference/finite-element/particle-method transient dynamics.
  • Particle methods for simulating large deformation and/or complicated geometries.
  • Efficient point sampling methods for higher dimensional spaces.
  • Dynamic strength modeling.
  • Visualization of tensor fields.
  • Tools for verification and validation of constitutive models.
  • Thermodynamic dissipation under large deformation.
  • Mesoscale modeling of heterogeneous media as a tool for developing improved macroscale models.
  • Frame indifference and alternatives to objective rates in finite deformation.
  • Hypervelocity impact diagnostics for strength and equation of state (EOS) modeling.
  • Shock-induced vaporization of metals.
  • Accelerated installation and maintenance of material models in multiple codes.
  • Thermodynamics of shocks.
  • Reliability of simulations.
  • Alternatives to upwind differencing for advection-diffusion problems.
  • Use of X-ray computed tomography (XCT) in validation.