7月6日，应土木工程与力学学院院长、西部灾害与环境力学教育部重点实验室主任周又和教授邀请，香港城市大学向平博士来我校进行学术合作交流，并在祁连堂322学术报告厅作了题为“Multiscale meshfree modeling for the mechanical behaviors of microtubules”的学术报告。
Numerical simulation methods play an important role in understanding the mechanical behavior of structures in nano and micro scales. Compared with experimental measurements in extremely small scales, computational modeling approaches are considered to have superior abilities to capture delicate structures’ reactions under complex loading and restrained environments. In conventional atomistic simulation approaches, computation of polyatomic structures with large amounts of atoms has obvious size limitations. Recently, the mechanical behavior of protein microtubules has attracted much attention from researchers. As a typical kind of polyatomic bio-structures, a single long microtubule contains up to billions of different types of atoms. In this study, mechanics of microtubules is explored to reveal novel insights. It is a real challenge to develop a more practical theory to consider this kind of polyatomic structure with both result accuracy and computing efficiency. Further, a mesh-free theoretical and numerical framework based on a higher-order Cauchy-Born rule under higher-order gradients continuity has been specifically set up. This simulation scheme is generally applicable and can be employed to study the overall mechanical behavior of microtubules.
Dr. Xiang Ping graduated with his PhD from the City University of Hong Kong in 2012. Before his PhD study in City University of Hong Kong in 2009, He had several years working experience as an engineer in industry taking responsibilities for mechanical analysis and design. He was involved in numerous mechanical analysis of building structures in Hong Kong. His main research interests and technical expertise are in solid mechanics, meshfree methods, multiscale modeling, nonlocal elasticity, bio- and nano-mechanics, computational mathematics, numerical methods in engineering and structural design. Over the last years, his research in these fields has resulted in refereed international journal papers, including Comput Meth Appl Mech Eng., Int. J. Solids Struct., etc. Currently, he is a Research Associate responsible for research and teaching activities in the City University of Hong Kong.