Lecture

Continuum Mechanics at EPFL: Research and Applications

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In course

ME-201: Continuum mechanics

Continuum conservation laws (e.g. mass, momentum and energy) will be introduced. Mathematical tools, including basic algebra and calculus of vectors and Cartesian tensors will be taught. Stress and deformation tensors will be applied to examples drawn from ...

Description

This lecture introduces the continuum hypothesis in mechanics, emphasizing the importance of asymptotic statements to ignore molecular nature at certain scales. It explores EPFL's research in continuum mechanics, covering topics like plasticity, fracture, and fluid-structure interaction. The lecture showcases various open research questions in the field, including reconciling molecular nature with continuum mechanics, exploring geometry-mechanics interplay, and studying fracture in geo-materials. Additionally, it delves into the stability of turbulent fluid flows and the buckling of shells. The lecture highlights the significance of continuum mechanics in various engineering research aims, such as bio-implants, bio-robotics, and soft robotics design.

Instructor

John Martin Kolinski

Dr. Kolinski studied Applied Mathematics (Sc.M.) and Applied Physics (Ph.D.) at Harvard University, completing a PhD under the supervision of L. Mahadevan and Shmuel Rubinstein on the role of air in droplet impact. John did his post-doc at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel supported by the Fulbright post-doctoral fellowship. At HUJI, he worked on interfacial instabilities in soft matter in the labs of Eran Sharon and Jay Fineberg. John continues his research into interfacial mechanics at EPFL in EMSI, his newly founded laboratory for the study of Engineering Mechanics of Soft Interfaces.

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Soft robotics

Soft robotics is a subfield of robotics that concerns the design, control, and fabrication of robots composed of compliant materials, instead of rigid links. In contrast to rigid-bodied robots built from metals, ceramics and hard plastics, the compliance of soft robots can improve their safety when working in close contact with humans. The goal of soft robotics is the design and construction of robots with physically flexible bodies and electronics. Sometimes softness is limited to part of the machine.

Bio-inspired robotics

Bio-inspired robotic locomotion is a fairly new subcategory of bio-inspired design. It is about learning concepts from nature and applying them to the design of real-world engineered systems. More specifically, this field is about making robots that are inspired by biological systems, including Biomimicry. Biomimicry is copying from nature while bio-inspired design is learning from nature and making a mechanism that is simpler and more effective than the system observed in nature.

Fluid mechanics

Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasmas) and the forces on them. It has applications in a wide range of disciplines, including mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical, and biomedical engineering, as well as geophysics, oceanography, meteorology, astrophysics, and biology. It can be divided into fluid statics, the study of fluids at rest; and fluid dynamics, the study of the effect of forces on fluid motion.

Robot

A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be constructed to evoke human form, but most robots are task-performing machines, designed with an emphasis on stark functionality, rather than expressive aesthetics.

Turbulence

In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to a laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between those layers. Turbulence is commonly observed in everyday phenomena such as surf, fast flowing rivers, billowing storm clouds, or smoke from a chimney, and most fluid flows occurring in nature or created in engineering applications are turbulent.

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