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SUMMARY:Interacting with instabilities: Nonlinearity in structural enginee
 ring - Ahmer Wadee (Imperial College London)
DTSTART:20181108T180000Z
DTEND:20181108T193000Z
UID:TALK112774@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ruslan Kotlyarov
DESCRIPTION:Structural engineering has a rich history of landmarks and num
 erous personalities. It also relies fundamentally on mathematics since str
 uctural failure is inherently a nonlinear process where changes can be sud
 den and deformations can be large. Mathematical modelling can reveal wheth
 er structures are vulnerable to catastrophically dangerous collapse (or fa
 ilures) or those that can be contained or somehow exploitable. Structural 
 instability\, or buckling\, is most likely to occur in components or syste
 ms made from slender elements that are under compression to some extent\, 
 such as columns and beams. \nWe shall discuss some recent research work co
 ncerning some practical structural engineering components that are vulnera
 ble to complex behaviour where multiple instabilities may occur in a natur
 al loading sequence. These works demonstrate that nonlinear mathematics pr
 ovides key tools to make informed decisions about whether potential failur
 e modes are catastrophic or where instabilities may even be exploited to e
 nhance structural performance.
LOCATION:Winstanley Lecture Hall\, Trinity College
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