In 1996, Harald Osnes received his PhD on Stochastic Analysis of Groundwater Flow at the Mechanics Division, Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo. After a year as a research scientist at SINTEF Applied Mathematics working on reservoir simulation, he returned to the Mechanics Division, Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo as an associate professor in numerical solid mechanics in the fall 1997. Since then his main scientific activity has been concentrated on numerical solid mechanics in general, and modeling complex anisotropic materials in particular. Through part-time positions at Numerical Objects AS and Det Norske Veritas (DNV) considerable attention has been paid on problems of industrial interest. For example, the output of the research cooperation with DNV includes two offshore standards/recommended practices for the use of composite components offshore, in addition to numbers of conference proceedings, technical reports/guidelines and two published papers.
Since 2004 Osnes has joined the Simula Research Laboratory as a research scientist, mostly in a part-time position. Presently, he has a 20% position at the Center for Biomedical Computing/Simula Research Laboratory, working on the mechanics of the heart. In particular, he has been focusing on developing a robust and accurate simulator describing the deformations of the heart during all phases of a heart beat. The mechanical behaviour of the heart is the result of complex interactions between a variety effects, including electro-chemical reactions and cross-bridge dynamics in the muscle cells, propagation of the electrical activation through the tissue and mechanical deformations, which depends on, e.g., passive and active stresses. These complicated effects are described through a coupled set of ordinary and partial differential equations, which in are implemented in a computer code and solved numerically. A useful and efficient simulator has now been developed. In the neat future, the simulator will be extended towards important applications for the medical community.
