Dear Reader,

I hope you are doing well and having a relaxing weekend. This September, we are on the verge of return back to work after the summer holidays. It is good to go back to some order and meet new students who I will be working with for the next academic year.

This week, I am going to reflect on the following:

1. Technical Reflection: The Triaxiality Challenge
2. Behind the Scenes at CM Videos: AI and YouTube Shorts
3. Quote of the Week: Success and Destiny: The Gospel of Henry Ford

Technical Reflections

The Triaxiality Challenge

I got a direct email in my inbox (michael.okereke@cmvideos.org) with a question about assessing features of a ductile response in which the user wants to ensure constant triaxiality with a unit cell analysis. The student provided me with two journal articles with the most recent of them given below:

Tekoglu, C., 2014. Representative volume element calculations under constant stress triaxiality, lode parameter, and shear ratio. International Journal of Solids and Structures, 51(25-26), pp.4544-4553.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2014.09.001​

I studied the paper and really enjoyed it. It inspired me to formulate a clearer way to help the student. That led to the video below which I published this week simply titled: How to apply Triaxial Loading on 3D RVEs in ABAQUS (voided material). In the 2 days since it was published, it has gathered already 286 views. This is quite good in comparison to the average videos on the challenge. If you have not watched the video, then here is it:

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Hallmarks (Unique features) of the Triaxiality challenge

There are certain things that we learn from the video above which I have termed the Triaxiality Challenge. This is because everyone interested in working with triaxial loading on RVEs must address these features. I believe these were the features that the student who contacted me was struggling with. They are the hallmarks of the triaxiality challenge:

• Virtual Domain generation: Every RVE study must always address the challenge of recreating the RVE of the problem. In most cases, the RVE can be quite simple in which case straightforward to recreate. However, many real life analysis will involve an RVE that is challenging to create. This is precisely the reason for isolating an RVE as against modelling the whole architecture. In the referenced paper above, they studied a single central void within a cubic RVE. I decided to extend the challenge to more realistic systems by exploring multiple voids with random distribution. I had to resort to a bespoke software developed by my company - CM Videos Ltd - designed precisely for such problems. This code is called MontCarlGen3D version 1. It is not yet available for public use but if you are interested in getting informed on when it becomes available, then join the mailing list of the software by signing up here.
• What problem are you solving? It is important to also understand the problem you are trying to solve with the triaxiality challenge. In the video above, I identified application areas where triaxial loading can come in handy for example: (a) exploring the coalescence of voids (b) dilation and (c) hydrostatic studies and well as (d) characterization of features of ductile deformation as: stress triaxiality, lode parameter and shear stress ratios. The last application area was the basis of the referenced paper. It was also the basis upon which my video was made although I did not get to the end of actually determining these parameters. If you are interested then do consider the paper. One glaring miss from my video is the absence of inplane shear loads. This was on purpose as I already have a different video where I showed how to impose pure shear loading on RVEs which you can watch here:

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• Unique application of Boundary Conditions: Since this is a triaxiality challenge, it is crucial that the user finds a simple and effective way to apply the boundary conditions that will impose the triaxial loading at every time step during the simulation. I did this in my video by combining a few set of unique features namely:
  • Using nodal surface sets to apply Dirichlet boundary conditions so that three orthogonal planes (X-, Y- and Z-surfaces were held securely with a roller boundary condition).
  • Applying displacement loads on three orthogonally positioned nodal reference point sets with a Dirichlet style Boundary condition according to a desired numerical value.
  • Kinematically constraining the reference points to the three orthogonal planes, so that the faces deform co-operatively with the deforming reference points.
• Post-test analysis considerations: Finally, I had to think of a good way to undertake the post-test analysis. I asked the solver (ABAQUS) to output reaction forces and displacements from the three reference points. These were then subsequently used to determine stress and strain measures. Stress was determined as the division of the reaction force and the corresponding surface area. Due to the irregular nature of the surface upon which the area was determined, I had to determine this area using a Python script designed to extract this information directly from ABAQUS.

The above represent a set of some challenges you must address if you are to benefit from the Triaxiality challenge. I know this might be a little bit too indepth for some of my readers, but if you find them helpful let me know. I know I might be speaking only to a small subset of this audience but for their sake, let us indulge them with such a dense explanation.

Behind the Scenes at CM Videos

AI and YouTube Shorts

I have been experimenting with use of AI in automatically creating YouTube Shorts. I had known about this but it was driven home to me as I watched a YouTube mentor of mine - Anne Dube - discuss how she uses AI to help her generate virality-possible YouTube Shorts very quickly. Here is her video: click here.

I have started experimenting similar to the approach by using this AI tool called Opus Pro which can be accessed here: https://www.opus.pro/. It is an AI tool that takes a long-form content and chops it up into Shorts according to your specifications (for example you can specify the duration). It also ranks the possible virality of the Short. It is a wonderful AI tool and I have used it to create a few shorts based on some of my 'talking-head' videos. Below is the most recent of such YouTube Shorts from my channel. It took little effort for me to generate such high quality video. Please let me know what you think of this.

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Quote of the Week

Success and Destiny: The Gospel of Henry Ford

I am taking my quote for the week from the wisdom of Henry Ford - the American inventor who is renowned for founding the Ford Motor Company, and who went on to achieve great success with the motor company. Here is the quote:

The quote is so relevant today, especially among millenials who have been known to be quite disastisfied with their careers and tend to jump from one career to another. Henry Ford failed in life massively but persevered until he found success with the Ford Motor Company. Today, the company he built continues to grow stronger and stronger with Ford cars some of the best loved cars in the UK auto market.

Three things stand out in the quote and those should give us confidence as we explore our successful life and these are:

1. Successful life is found not stumbled on: We all want to be successful and get the best out of life. Yet, only a few are proactively searching and working towards that successful life. Burning the midnight candle, exercising beyond the limit of others, going the extra mile and showing consistency in your YouTube and content creation are all indicators of one who understands what success looks like and is determined to find them. Incidentally, those habituated in the above habits are always the ones who surprisingly 'stumble on success overnight' as the casual observer will often say. Yet, the reason for such overnight success is a commitment to search and find success. If you will do the same, just as Henry Ford did, you will certainly find success.
2. True success is entwined with ones destiny: Another facet of the success equation is the necessity for descovery of what you are destined to do. Lionel Messi, at a tender age, descovered his great passion for kicking football about and began to work on it. At 13 years, he signed a professional contract with Barcelona and had gone on to be one of the most decorated footballers of all time. Albert Eistein found his passion for science and ended up the investor of the laws of relativity. Everyday, people are finding out what they are passionate about and working on it. The reason why destiny is important in achieving success is because you are equipped already (from creation by God) with the skills and temperaments to be successful in what you are destined to do. So, part of becoming successful is to review yourself and find what genuinely excites you and start working on them, then would you see true success.
3. Success = Do it! There is always a work that must precede success. There is a work that must be in place before the Olympic medal is hung on your neck. Every building becomes impressive only after the labour of work is in place. Therefore, you must be addicted to 'doing it!' Be committed to applying yourself to work. Start from where you are, as best as you can, and over time, with cummulative improvements, you would become truly successful.

So, in conclusion, I vibe with Henry Ford that you must work to be successful, understand what your destiny is and that carries with you the possility for success and finally, there is no success without 'doing it!' That is what I have been reflecting on as my Quote for the Week.

Thanks for your patience in reading this long newsletter. The juice of reflection was definitely flowing today, and more appropriately, I had to offer some technical commentries on the the Triaxiality challenge so those positioned to benefit the most have enough meat in my reflections to truly benefit.

I will catch up with you all. Some of you might be returning to compus, some starting new programmes whilst others might be starting new projects. Whatever it is you go on to do in the new academic year, I can only wish you good luck and pray God's speed in it all.

Of course, I am always here to support you in the journey, so just write me an email and I will try my best to help you. Do have a wonderful week and catch up with you by the end of the week.