PHY480 COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS FINAL REPORT
INTRODUCTION
The rating for the overall experience is : GREAT AND CHALLENGING. From
my point of view, I benefit from most of the topics of the course. I
may divide the benefits in two categories: GENERAL PROFESSIONAL
PROFICIENCY and RESEARCH RELATED, both are detailed in the links below.
LINKS TO GENERAL PROFESSIONAL PROFICIENCY ITEMS
Scroll down the page or Click a headline
LINKS TO RESEARCH RELATED ITEMS
Scroll down the page or Click a headline
GENERAL PROFESSIONAL PROFICIENCY ITEMS
For the past 18 years of my
life I think was over-exposed to Windows like systems. My knowledge of
the UNIX sytem was limited to a "follow-trough" recipes written by the
system administrators.
After finishing the course I feel comfortable working in both platforms
: UNIX and WINDOWS.
I have opened my understanding to the possibilities UNIX standard and
UNIX-Linux can offer. To make this idea more lively I will quote some
words I heard in class : "Computing in Science is not as hard as "they"
want us to think it is".
Another plus of this "cultural shock" is that Engineering Sofwtare
(such as: Finite Element Methods and CAD tools) is mostly available in
UNIX platform.
To finish with the apology for the UNIX learning experience, I have to
tell you that it was very exciting to be able to "ssh" computers from
remote and "close" locations. In my office I handle my personal laptop,
my research PC, and a UNIX station. During the course I had the
opportunity to learn how to communicate between these guys and also
introduce them to new friends, namely, the gauss server in the Physics
department and the scully server in the engineering department.
Even though I tried, I did
not find the time to follow all the instructions in some
web-page-development software to build my PERSONAL WEB PAGE. During the
class,though, I find HTML particularly simple and convenient to build
web pages. As a proof to support my claim, the document you are reading
now is posted on MY ENGINEERING WEB PAGE, which I develop during the
course. The link below will lead you to my web page. Though not fancy,
it is enough to introduce myself to the world. Of course, this means a
lot to me.
JORGE OLORTEGUI-YUME WEB PAGE
This is another strength of the course, specially for someone that has
already met Numerical Analysis in its basic versions. After the "PHY480
experience" I am tempted to say that Numerical Analysis is a good
method to learn Mathematics and Physics or, You really comprehend
meanings of Mathematics and Physics when you do Numerical Analysis.
The first hand experience with the most common Numerical Analysis
techniques applied to ongoing research makes it really interesting.
The way the course is organized forces the students to learn the basic
numerical techniques embedded in more trascendental and heavier ones.
For instance.the teaching of the bisection method for "Root finding"
embedded in the more trascendental Numerov technique is very elegant.
I have to admit that at the beginning the learning curve on my specific
case was very steep. However, the proficiency in Fortran I have
acquired pays off the effort.There are some outstanding points that I
prefer to enumerate below:
1)I enjoyed learning the professional use of Numerical recipes and libraries.
2)Reading other people's mind becomes more interesting when you are
reading smart ones. This was specially true when I had to modify code
written by other people and then make it work
3)Gnuplot and xyzview do a great favor to Fortan 77: they make it
alive to visual learners as me. Sometimes is very frustating not to be
able to visualize what are you getting whether right or wrong. Gnuplot
and xyz somewhat complement the lack of user-friendliness in a language
like Fortran 77.
RESEARCH RELATED ITEMS
The heart of the research I am performing is the development of a
physics-based Theory for wear in cutting tools. Our stake is that
cutting tools at high machining speed wear down by the concurrence of
two micromechanisms : abrasion and chemical dissolution. Previous
researchers working with my advisor (and my advisor himself) wrote
programs for simulation of these mechanisms in Fortran 77.
Previous to the PHY480 course this program were transparent to me
but now, I will tackle them down with no major complications.
There is a part of my research that will be addresed using FEM (Finite
Element Methods) techniques. I will using FEM mainly for the simulation
of the temperature field in the interface tool-work material. Also a
simulation of the Plasticity phenomenon inside the material is
proposed. COMSOL-Femlab in its MEMS module will be used for the
temperature analysis whereas ABAQUS will be preferred for the
Plasticity problem. In both cases the definition of the Material model
used is of capital relevance. It turns out that for ABAQUS the material
model definition file can be modified using FORTRAN. By the same token
the files for the definition of specific type problems can be modified
in COMSOL-Femlab.
By now, the relevance of this course to my research should be evident.
Nonetheless, I want to add that the increasing proficiency in Fortran
during the course helped my assertiveness on my programming skills . I
develop a large program in MATLAB 7.0 for the IMAGE ANALYSIS of
Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy topographical data of my samples.
This program will most likely include a FFT filter to eliminate astray
points as well as electronic noise. A link to a figure showing the
output of this program is below
Surface Topography of a cutting tool insert for 480s machining time