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Events for October 01, 2004

  • Drinking Water Issues in Ethnic Groups Living in the Mountains of Southern China

    Fri, Oct 01, 2004 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    This seminar talk will be presented by Dr. Derek E.Chitwood, Technical Director
    Partners in Hope, Inc.
    Partnering to provide hope for the minority people of Asia.Abstract:The mountainous regions of south-west China are chiefly populated by minority peoples. Greater than 90% of these are farmers with very low income levels and poor education. Most villages are comprised of 200 to 500 people and use springs for their water source. The local governments have worked hard to install water piping system for villages, but are overwhelmed by the great need. Because of the increase in population and resulting deforestation, springs in or near the village are now often dried up. As a result village have turned to springs further way from their village. Some are as far away as 6 km from the village served. Beyond the economic difficulties, there is also great difficulties resulting from lack of education and technical expertise. Springs are often improperly developed and left open, exposed to the elements. Individual farmers, seeing that the land is unused above the spring, have seized it and planted crops. Because the custom in China is to use night soil as fertilizer and because the springs are not properly contained, biological contaminates regularly enter. Few villages have a "water master" and few have any type of maintenance program. As a result of these situations, most villages water systems are in very poor conditions, physically and quality wise. In the district where we work the average concentration of E. coli at the spring was 24.8/100 ml and at the in village cisterns the average was 83.3/100ml (based on 164 samples over a 3 month period). This is obviously far greater than the WHO standard for E. coli of less than 1/100ml. Local people and local officials alike have the desire to address these problems, but often lack the finances and technical ability to solve these long term problems.

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Bldg., Room 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Multi-Scale and Adaptive Modeling of Materials and Structures

    Fri, Oct 01, 2004 @ 02:45 PM - 04:00 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    J. S. Chen, Professor
    Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
    University of California, Los AngelesIn this presentation, the mathematical and computational framework based on (1) wavelet multi-scale homogenization and (2) asymptotic expansion method for multi-scale modeling of materials and structures will be first presented. A variationally consistent approach to obtain multi-scale Euler equations, as well as the associated numerical methods solving scale-coupling functions, will be introduced. For demonstration purposes, a multi-scale variational formulation for multi-scale modeling of stressed grain growth with evolving microstructures will be presented. Many local instability problems (such as wrinkling formation) exhibit multiple length scales in the spatial domain. The extension of scale-coupling approach to eigenvalue problems and problems with local instability will be discussed. Due to the difference in the required resolution in spatial discretization at different length scale levels, adaptive computational method plays an important role in the multi-scale modeling. An adaptive numerical method based on a meshfree reproducing kernel approximation will be introduced. Finally, a multi-scale and adaptive modeling of structural failure under blast loading will be presented. Refreshments will be served at 2:30p.m.**ALL FIRST-YEAR MATERIALS SCIENCE GRADUATE STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND**

    Location: Vivian Hall of Engineering (VHE) - 217

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Petra Pearce

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