HDR Scholarship - Improving the Material Point Method

Project Supervisor

Institute

Location

Geelong Technology Precinct (GTP), Waurn Ponds Campus

Research topic

The Material Point Method is a hybrid meshfree numerical method which is commonly used to solve challenging large deformation solid/fluids mechanics problems. In this method, we have a background grid, which is fixed, and a set of particles moving freely over this grid. These particles carry the state of the solid: stresses, strains, temperatures, volume etc. Mathematically, the Material Point Method is a numerical method to solve partial differential equations encountered in solid mechanics (linear momentum equations).

Although it has been used to solve many problems, the method suffers from some fundamental problems. They are:

Energy conservation loss.
Poor accuracy in solving contact problems (for example, the penetration issue).
High computational cost.

This research is in partnership with Dr Phu Nguyen at Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University and will commence on or after 1^st November 2023.

Project aim

This aims at developing techniques to mitigate some of the above mentioned issues. Specifically, the student needs to;

investigate the source of the issues,
develop algorithms/methods to solve them,
implement in an in-house Material Point Method code and
test the performance of the implemented algorithms.

Important dates

Applications close 5pm, 31 December 2023

Benefits

This scholarship is available over 3 years.

Stipend of $30,000 per annum tax exempt (2023 rate)
Relocation allowance of $500-1500 (for single to family) for students moving from interstate
International students only: Tuition fees offset for the duration of 4 years. Single Overseas Student Health Cover policy for the duration of the student visa.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible you must:

be either a domestic or international candidate. Domestic includes candidates with Australian Citizenship, Australian Permanent Residency or New Zealand Citizenship.
meet Deakin's PhD entry requirements
be enrolling full time and hold an honours degree (first class) or an equivalent standard master's degree with a substantial research component.

Please refer to the research degree entry pathways page for further information.

Other criteria:

Applicants with an engineering, or physics, or applied mathematics or computer sciences background are welcome to apply
Strong coding experience is required, either in Python, C++ or Julia
Numerical analysis (partial differential equations), linear algebra skills are required
Linux/Unix knowledge is preferable