Dr. Ames specializes in polymer mechanics, specifically with regards to constitutive model development, experimental thermal-mechanical material characterization, and finite element analysis (FEA), including fully-coupled thermal-stress analysis. She is familiar with various polymer forming techniques; her doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on experimental and numerical analysis of polymer micro-hot-embossing for use in mass production of microfluidic devices. Her earlier graduate work focused on experimental and numerical analysis of polymer micro-indentation.
Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Ames was a staff member at Sandia National Laboratories in the Multi-Physics Modeling and Simulation department. During her time there, she performed thermal analysis on an existing weapon system and investigated the performance of mechanical contact algorithms in a variety of FEA codes.
Anand L, Ames NA, Srivastavaa V, Chestera SA. A thermo-mechanically coupled theory for large deformations of amorphous polymers. Part I: Formulation. Int J Plast 2009, in press. EPub ahead of print: doi:10.1016/j.ijplas.2008.11.004.
Ames NM, Srivastava V, Chester SA, Anand L. A thermo-mechanically coupled theory for large deformations of amorphous polymers. Part II: Applications. Int J Plast 2009, in press. EPub ahead of print: doi:10.1016/j.ijplas.2008.11.005.
Anand L, Ames NM. On modeling the micro-indentation response of an amorphous polymer. Int J Plast 2006; 22(6):1123–1170. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2005.07.006.
Presentations
Ames NM, Anand L. Modeling and simulation of the hot-embossing process on amorphous polymers. Proceedings, 6th International Conference on Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, April 2008.
Ames NM, Srivastava V, Lele SP, Anand L. Modeling and simulation of the hot-embossing process for manufacture of microfluidic devices from amorphous polymers. Proceedings, 1st International Conference on Micromanufacturing, September 2006.