About

James Barber is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, holding the titles of Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Jon R. & Beverly S. Holt Professor. His academic background includes a Sc.D. and Ph.D. in Engineering from Cambridge University, obtained in 1992 and 1968 respectively, as well as a B.A. in Mechanical Sciences from Cambridge University in 1963. His research interests encompass solid mechanics, including thermoelasticity, elasticity, solidification, contact mechanics, tribology, elastodynamics, fracture, and the stability of thermoelastic contact, with a focus on friction and the contact of rough surfaces. Barber has made significant contributions to the understanding of mechanics and materials, mobility in automotive and transportation systems, and has been recognized with numerous awards for his excellence in engineering education and research. His work has been celebrated through awards such as the Daniel C. Drucker Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Textbook Excellence Award for his publication 'Intermediate Mechanics of Materials.' Barber is highly esteemed by colleagues worldwide for his scholarly work, collegiality, and dedication to his field.

Research topics

• Composite material
• Materials science
• Engineering
• Geometry
• Optics
• Mechanical engineering
• Mechanics
• Engineering physics
• Structural engineering
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Fretting Fatigue Starting from the Edges of Incomplete Contacts Under General Periodic Loading -An Asymptotic Approach

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

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• Fretting fatigue starting from the edges of incomplete contacts under general periodic loading — An asymptotic approach

  Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics · 2025-07-04 · 2 citations

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• Asymptotic representation of frictional, non-conforming contact edges under general periodic loading

  Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids · 2025-01-01

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• Elastic, flat and rounded finite contacts in partial slip: A novel solution based on wedge and half-plane formulations

  International Journal of Solids and Structures · 2025-07-07

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The accurate modelling of elastic, flat and rounded contacts is critical for several engineering applications, such as turbine fanblade roots and seabed riser connections. This paper introduces a refined hybrid three-quarter plane/half-plane formulation that addresses the limitations of traditional half-plane theory by incorporating the effects of the traction-free surfaces. The refined method extends previous work that uses a combination of numerical and analytical techniques to solve for tractions and slip behaviour at the contact edges under multi-stage loading. Incorporating the effect of geometric coupling allows us to differentiate between the stress and slip conditions at each contact edge, for the first time. Validating the results against finite element analysis demonstrates that the proposed approach achieves greater accuracy than half-plane theory for geometries with relatively large flat lengths. • For a flat and rounded contact, with relatively large flat length, the half-plane assumption is only valid very close to the contact edge. • The vertical traction-free surfaces of the contact defining body cause the presence of geometric coupling in elastically similar bodies. • Calibrating the external loads to the contact edge behaviour, where half-plane theory is valid. • Solving problems with partial slip, under various loading trajectories.

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• Unlocking superior fatigue performance in nanoparticle metal material jetted 316L stainless steel

  Materials & Design · 2025-10-13 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  • Metal material jetting (MMJ) enables refined SS316L microstructures. • MMJ 316L shows up to 16× improvement in fatigue life over binder jetting. • Grain refinement enhances crack growth resistance. • Fatigue limit predicted via hardness–defect model within ∼5 % error. • MMJ offers high fatigue resistance for structural materials applications. This study explores the fatigue performance of novel metal material jetting (MMJ), a process that uses sub-micron powders to induce significantly refined microstructures compared with other sinter-based additive manufacturing (AM) technologies such as metal binder jetting (MBJ). Stainless steel 316L (SS316L) samples fabricated via MMJ were subjected to fully reversed uniaxial cyclic loading to generate a stress-life (S/N) curve, which was compared to literature data for MBJ SS316L. The fatigue performance of MMJ SS316L was markedly superior to MBJ, with as much as 16× improvement in the number of cycles to failure in the low cycle fatigue regime and 14× in the high cycle fatigue regime. This enhancement was attributed to the inherent smaller grains, leading to a high density of high-angle grain boundaries and annealing twins that improved resistance to crack initiation and propagation. A mechanics-based model incorporating hardness and defect size was used to estimate the fatigue limit, yielding a ∼5 % error compared to experimental values. These results underscore the influence of finer microstructural features and defect distribution on fatigue performance in sinter-based AM and highlight MMJ’s potential for structural applications requiring high fatigue resistance

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• Three-Dimensional Effects in Frictional Contact

  Tribology Letters · 2025-06-11

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Cattaneo and Mindlin showed that if a Hertzian contact is loaded first by a normal force and then by a monotonically increasing tangential force, the resulting shear tractions can be expressed as a simple superpositon, provided we assume that the frictional tractions in the slip zone are everywhere aligned with the applied force—a result which is strictly true only in the special case where Poisson’s ratio is zero. Ciavarella later showed that with this assumption, a similar superposition applies to any uncoupled three-dimensional contact problem for the half space. Here we relax this assumption and develop a general solution for the case where the tangential force is relatively small, so that the slip annulus is thin compared with other dimensions of the contact area. The local conditions are then characterized by the mode II and III stress-intensity factors in the corresponding adhesive problem. We show that the slip direction depends only on a dimensionless coordinate, so that all points in the slip zone pass through scaled versions of the same expressions as the applied shear force increases. The results show a surprisingly large deviation in slip direction, particularly for incompressible materials.

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• Elastic, Flat and Rounded Finite Contacts in Partial Slip: A Novel Solution Based on Wedge and Half-Plane Formulations

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Indentation of a stiff membrane on an incompressible elastic halfspace

  International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics · 2024-08-31 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Indentation of a very stiff membrane (like graphene) on an incompressible elastic material has been suggested as a method to measure the elastic modulus of the membrane, but so far the method is less explored than that based on indentation of a free-standing membrane clamped on the outer boundary, which relies on analytical solutions. However, we analyse the problem rigorously with an energy minimization in the Rayleigh sense with a one term approximation of the vertical displacement, and show that in the fully non-linear regime, the load F has a single term solution increasing as the power 5/3 of the indentation Δ . The solution is corrected only in the prefactor by extensive FEM investigation using a concentrated load resulting finally in F = 1 . 45 × 4 π 384 π 1 / 3 μ s 2 / 3 E m 1 / 3 Δ 5 / 3 h 1 / 3 , where μ s is the substrate shear modulus, h the membrane thickness, and E m its elastic modulus. We also find the effect of a finite membrane outer radius analytically, so that this method is also based entirely on analytical solutions. Comparison with experimental results seems very promising. • Indentation of a very stiff membrane (like graphene) on an incompressible elastic material is studied. • We use a Rayleigh approximation. • We find load F increases as the power 5/3 of the indentation Δ . • The solution is corrected only in the prefactor by extensive FEM investigation. • We also find the effect of a finite membrane outer radius analytically.

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• Fractional Advection-Diffusion Equation and Associated Diffusive Stresses

  Solid mechanics and its applications · 2024-01-01

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• Cracks in the Framework of Fractional Thermoelasticity

  Solid mechanics and its applications · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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Frequent coauthors

• M. Ciavarella

  Polytechnic University of Bari

  38 shared

• M.D. Thouless

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  20 shared

• D.A. Hills

  University of Oxford

  19 shared

• Maria Comninou

  17 shared

• D.A. Hills

  13 shared

• Yong Hoon Jang

  12 shared

• A. Azarkhin

  Alcoa (United States)

  10 shared

• Wei Lu

  10 shared

Awards & honors

• Textbook Excellence Award, Text and Academic Authors (2012)
• ASME Mayo D Hersey Award (2017)
• ASME 2015 Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award (2015)
• 2012 TAA "Texty" Textbook Excellence Award (2012)
• Jon and Beverly Holt Professorship in Engineering (2011)