News & EventsDepartment Events
Events
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Dec4
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall examinations begin
TIME Monday, December 4, 2023
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec9
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall examinations end
TIME Saturday, December 9, 2023
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec9
EVENT DETAILS
lessThe ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 9 in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive.
*No tickets required
TIME Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
LOCATION Pick-Staiger Concert Hall map it
CONTACT Northwestern Engineering Events northwestern-engineering-events@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
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Dec11
EVENT DETAILSmore info
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Speaker: Patrick Dills, PhD candidate University of Wisconsin, Madison REACH Lab
Title: Actuation Approaches for High-Performance Kinesthetic Haptic Interaction
Date and Time: Monday, December 11 at 12:00 PM CT
Location: Tech IEMS C211
Abstract: Haptic devices promise to convey feelings of touch to the user. However, current devices lack the dynamic range necessary to present immersive virtual environments. This is in part due to a lack of capable kinesthetic haptic actuators. This talk focuses on three classes of haptic actuators: hybrid active-passive actuators, haptic actuators with speed reducers and backlash, and admittance-controlled actuators. We introduce three innovative actuation approaches: Balanced Hybrid Actuation, Relative Motion Control of haptic actuators with backlash, and Series Admittance Actuation, each tailored to address the shortcomings of its respective actuation class. These approaches aim to enable high performance kinesthetic haptic interactions across a wide range of form factors and interaction scales.
Bio: Patrick Dills is a PhD student at The University of Wisconsin, Madison and is advised by Prof. Michael Zinn. Patrick received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Chico and subsequently worked for Sierra Pacific Industries as a mechanical design engineer. Patrick returned to academia earning a M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison focusing on mechatronic systems. His graduate research focuses on the design and control of actuators for kinesthetic haptics and physical human-robot interaction. His work has been recognized at both the Haptics Symposium and World Haptics Conferences with a best work in progress paper award (HS-2018), best video presentation (HS 2020), best technical paper runner up (HS 2020), and best technical paper award (WHC 2023).
TIME Monday, December 11, 2023 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
LOCATION IEMS C211, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Amy Nedoss amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Center for Robotics and Biosystems (CRB)
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Dec14
EVENT DETAILS
lessProf. Zdeněk P Bažant
Walter P. Murphy Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Northwestern University
A preceding seminar on 1/12/23 argued that the resistance of a heterogeneous material to the displacement field curvature is the physically most realistic localization limiter for softening damage and fracture. The curvature was characterized by the second gradient of the displacement vector field, which includes the material rotation gradient, and was named the ‘sprain’ tensor (a force variable work-conjugate to ‘sprain’ tensor). Initially, the partial derivatives of the associated sprain energy density were used to obtain self-equilibrated sets of curvature-resisting nodal sprain forces. Some forces acted on nodes adjacent to the finite element, which led to enormous computational burden. This burden is now eliminated by formulating a finite element with linear shape functions for both the displacement vector and the approximate displacement gradient tensor. The derivatives of the latter then yield the tensor of displacement curvature (or hessian), obviating the need for sprain forces. The main idea is to use a Lagrange multiplier tensor to constrain the approximate gradients to the actual displacement gradients. A user element for Abaqus is formulated and used to demonstrate mesh-independent crack band growth, capturing the band width variation and smooth damage distribution across the crack band.
Born and educated in Prague (Ph.D. 1963), Bažant joined the Northwestern faculty in 1969, where he has been W.P. Murphy Professor since 1990 and simultaneously McCormick Institute Professor since 2002, and Director of Center for Geomaterials (1981-87). He has been inducted to the NAS, NAE, AAAS, Royal Soc. London and 8 other national academies, and has received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and the Art I. Class from the President of Austria, among many other awards and 9 honorary doctorates. He has authored nine books on structural stability, fracture, its probability, and concrete creep and hygrothermal effects. In 2019 Stanford University citation survey, he ranked worldwide no.1 in CE and no.2 in engineering overall. In 2015, ASCE established the Bažant Medal for Failure and Damage Prevention and in 2023, ASME established the Bažant Medal for contributions to mechanics.
TIME Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Jeremy Wells jeremywells@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Mechanical Engineering (ME)
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Dec15
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall Degrees Conferred
TIME Friday, December 15, 2023
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec22
EVENT DETAILS
lessWinter Recess - University Closed
TIME Friday, December 22, 2023
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar