New NSF Grant - Marta Lewicka

Monday, August 24, 2020

Marta Lewicka has been recently been funded by the US National Science Foundation (award DMS 2006439) for the proposal “Dimension Reduction and Singular Limits of Prestrained Structures” for the period of August 1, 2020 – July 31, 2023. This project is directed at the study of properties and behavior of "prestrained elastica". Elastica (elastic materials) are the solid materials which return to their original shape and size after forces applied to them are removed. If an elastic body is appropriately processed mechanically (e.g. rolled), thermally (cooled non-uniformly during heat treatment), chemically ("nitrided" through surface absorption of nitrogen) or exposed to inhomogeneous growth, stresses and strains may develop in the body at equilibrium, leading to the material that has been prestrained (strained in advance). A characteristic which singles out the quality of prestraining in a body is that even in the absence of exterior forces the body assumes a shape that is radically different from the same body without strains.