Mechanics of solids and structures@DICATAM

The mechanics of solids and structures provides theoretical foundations and numerical concepts that are essential to the practice of mechanical, civil, structural, and aeronautical engineering, material science and engineering, nanotechnology, biology, geophysics, and other branches of engineering and applied science. The endless increase in computational power significantly spreads the focus of the mechanics of solids to multidisciplinary areas and problems, at different length and time scales.

The Mechanics of solids and structures group at Department of Civil, Environmental, Architectural Engineering and Mathematics (DICATAM) offers a set of courses in statics, dynamics, advanced elasticity, and computational inelasticity, within the familiar structure of the continuum mechanics. The program has a strong focus on the mechanics of the green economy, health and wealth.

Some of the current research in the Solid Mechanics group includes:

• Advanced Modeling and Simulations for Metal Plasticity and for quasi-brittle materials;

• Advanced Modeling and Simulations for heterogeneous materials and composite structures;

• Advanced Modeling and Simulations for Multi-scale mechanics and multi-physics of materials;

• Advanced Modeling and Simulations of fracture growth and stability in brittle or embrittled materials;

• Variational formulations for initial value mechanical problems with applications to the integration of the structural dynamics equations