Mechanics of solids and structures is a fundamental subject not only in mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering but also in many and wide-ranging areas including oil and gas, biomechanics, electronics, materials science, geotechnics, geomechanics and earth science. The same principles and often similar or even the same governing equations can be used to interpret and predict many phenomena, on a wide range of length and time scales, in all these diverse areas of science and engineering. Many fundamental concepts underpinning this subject have been well established for decades, if not centuries. On the other hand, in most areas a large number of issues remain open and call upon researchers in the field to address them.
On the computational side, the exponential increase of processing speed and available computer memory allow analyst to conduct numerical simulations that were unconceivable only ten years ago. However, how to fully exploit these opportunities is itself a challenge, also in consideration of the ever-increasing amount of data to process and analyse. For many problems, unresolved computational issues still exist, for example in cases involving strain localisation, fracture, friction, buckling or other phenomena. These can make it challenging to compute the solution, when a unique solution exists, or can lead to so-called mathematical ‘bifurcations’ and therefore loss of uniqueness of the solution itself. Also, many mathematical models of solids and structures are still based on empirical or, at best, phenomenological approaches. For these cases, more research is often needed to develop better models that incorporate the underlying physics.
On the experimental side, great opportunities are now offered by techniques that enable increasingly accurate measurements of displacements, velocities, acceleration, strains and strain rates. Likewise, very detailed studies of fracture surfaces after failure are now possible thanks to the advances of microscopy analysis. Therefore, model validations that could not be conducted until few years ago are now possible, sometimes proving the models not sufficiently effective. They also provide new insight into the physics of these phenomena and therefore suggest new lines of research for the development of new or better mathematical models. On the other hand, despite these unprecedented advances in experimental techniques, there are still problems where direct measurement of the quantities of interest is not possible. Two examples among others are the properties and behaviour of the earth crust at depths of more than few kilometres or those of biological tissues in many vital parts of living bodies. For these types of situations, measurements can only be taken indirectly and must therefore be coupled with mathematical models and, in most cases, complex numerical simulations.
Mechanics of solids and structures is also at the heart of industrial design and analysis. In many sectors, design optimisation requires integration of computer-aided design with numerical modelling based on finite-element analysis (FEA), computational-fluid dynamics (CFD), smooth-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) or other types of numerical methods. Multi-scale and multi-physics simulations are increasingly used to push the boundaries of the current technologies and industrial design.
Therefore, the area of mechanics of solids and structures has never offered more opportunities to conduct research, both of fundamental nature and to address everyday problems faced by the industry. Such research is increasingly interdisciplinary in nature and therefore, the members of this group routinely collaborate with other groups within and outside Brunel, including but not limited to colleagues working in materials science, manufacturing, mathematics, civil engineering, design, life sciences, computer science.