Courses

PHY 101 – Mechanics and Heat

Period: Fall 2020, Fall 2021

The objective of this course is to provide students with a solid basis in classical mechanics and thermodynamics, on which to build for following physics/mechanics classes, and to be able to explain some of everyday phenomenon. It covers a variety of concepts pertaining to the motion of solid objects, and the quantitative description of gases and how energy passes from one form to the other in such systems. Upon completion of this course, students will master basic equations and principles, and will be able to derive and solve simple model problems drawn from their environment.

MEC 431 – Mechanics of Continuous Media 2

Period: Spring 2019, Spring 2020

In this course, the students are introduced to the basics of three dimensional continuum mechanics, its challenge and main concepts. Upon completion of the course, the student is expected to be familiar with the notions of strain and stress tensors, to be able to write and use the fundamental equations of motions in the framework of three dimensional continuum mechanics, to understand the problematic of constitutive laws and to solve elementary problems in fluid mechanics and in elasticity. This course is a continuation of MEC 430 – Mechanics of Continuous Media 1.

The following aspects of three-dimensional continuous media are considered:

  • Macroscopic modeling of forces inside continuous media, introduction of the different stress tensors (Cauchy and Piola-Kirchoff) and explaining what they physically represent, demonstrating how the stress tensors are used to express conservation laws and equilibrium equations
  • Introduction of the concept of deformation, the deformation tensors and basic constitutive laws with an emphasis on elasticity
  • Stability analysis of steady state problems and solutions to equilibrium problems for simple three dimensional practical situations.

PHY 206 – Waves in Fluids with Geophysics applications

Period: Spring 2019, Spring 2020

The course describes waves and heat transfer in fluids, with a preference for illustrations coming from the Earth system, in particular the atmosphere. Waves or oscillations are one essential type of motion present in many fluids. One goal of the course is to demonstrate how one proceeds to obtain wave solutions starting from a physical description of a system and its equations of motion. Acoustic waves are considered as a first example, surface water waves at different scales (from ripples in the pond to tsunamis) will be derived as further examples. Basics of fluid mechanics (Euler equations, kinematics) are introduced in order to make these developments possible. Similarities in the behavior of fluid waves and optical waves seen in PHY202 will be discussed.

The structure of the atmosphere and how we have progressively come to understand it is reviewed. To describe this understanding and touch upon the subject of climate change, thermodynamics is revisited and applied to the atmosphere (thermal structure and radiative balance).

At the end of the course, the students are expected to understand how one characterizes a family of waves (dispersion relation, polarization relations), and how to proceed to obtain, in a given system, wave solutions if they exist. The students will have reviewed thermodynamics and have seen applications to the atmosphere (thermal structure, atmospheric stability, clouds, radiative balance). Finally, some elements of the study of the Earth, and of the atmosphere in particular, will have been introduced.

MEC472 – (Experimental course) Deformation of Materials

Period: Winter 2019

In this course, the students learn to use the state-of-the-art digital image correlation technique (DIC) to measure deformation (displacement and strain) on different material systems. The main idea behind this class is to make the students discover the well-known constitutive relationships through experiments instead of formally presenting them in a classroom lecture.