This course applies mechanical physics concepts to practical engineering and environmental problems.

In order to ensure peoples’ safety, any structure, be it a building, a nuclear reactor, a dam, an embankment, or a natural hillside, must be able to withstand the stresses that are placed on it by its environment. You will learn how forces cause stress within solid materials, and how to map the three‐dimensional state of stress through a material. We will apply concepts of material science to predict how the stress state of a material causes it to deform and predict how, and at what load, a structure will fail. Students will learn how reduce natural settings and designs to simplified models that can be analyzed mathematically.