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Local And Nonlocal Models In Thin-Plate And Bridge Dynamics, Jeremy Trageser

Department of Mathematics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores several models in continuum mechanics from both local and nonlocal perspectives. The first portion settles a conjecture proposed by Filippo Gazzola and his collaborators on the finite-time blow-up for a class of fourth-order differential equations modeling suspension bridges. Under suitable assumptions on the nonlinearity and the initial data, a finite-time blowup is demonstrated as a result of rapid oscillations with geometrically growing amplitudes. The second section introduces a nonlocal peridynamic (integral) generalization of the biharmonic operator. Its action converges to that of the classical biharmonic as the radius of nonlocal interactions---the ``horizon"---tends to zero. For the corresponding …