Mechanics of Generalized Continua with Applications to Microstructured Materials
The past two decades witnessed a widespread resurgence of interest in generalized continuum theories primarily due to their capability to model the micromechanical behavior of materials with heterogeneous microstructures and to capture the related experimentally observed size effects. A multitude of generalized continua exist nowadays ranging from couple-stress and strain-gradient theories to higher order media like the Cosserat, micromorphic and multipolar continua that introduce additional kinematical degrees of freedom. Such theories can address a large variety of material behavior like foams, single and polycrystalline metals, composites, granular media, and other engineering materials with complex microstructure. Applications of generalized continua include the design of metamaterials used in biomechanics and acoustics, mechanics of growing tissues, damage and fracture theories, indentation at small scales, granular mechanics and geo-mechanics.
The purpose of this mini-symposium is to provide a forum of experts in generalized continua to exchange ideas and get informed about the latest trends of the research in the field. The session is open to new advances in the field of generalized continua from the theoretical, computational and experimental perspectives with a good balance between mathematical, mechanical and material aspects. Topics of the mini-symposium include:
- Wave propagation in materials with microstructure
- Cosserat and micromorphic approaches
- Micromechanics of fracture and contact
- Strain gradient elasticity and plasticity approaches
- Numerical methods and generalized continua
- Instabilities in Cosserat and strain gradient materials
- Higher order approaches in geomechanics
- Homogenization theory and generalized continua
- Dislocations and generalized continua