This thesis investigates the fracture of nearly incompressible hyperelastic media. It covers the different characteristics of bulk material failure under dilatational or distortional loads and develops a unified description of the corresponding failure surface. It proposes a coupled strain and energy failure criterion for the assessment of notch-induced crack nucleation and presents a weak-interface-model that allows for efficient stress, strain and failure analyses of hyperelastic adhesive lap joints. Theoretical concepts for the measurement of fracture properties of nonlinear elastic materials are provided. The methodology is developed using two exemplary hyperelastic silicones, DOWSIL 993 Structural Glazing Sealant and DOWSIL Transparent Structural Silicone Adhesive, and is validated using large sets of experiments of different loading conditions.

Current Perspectives and New Directions in Mechanics, Modelling and Design of Structural Systems comprises 330 papers that were presented at the Eighth International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation (SEMC 2022, Cape Town, South Africa, 5-7 September 2022). The topics featured may be clustered into six broad categories that span the themes of mechanics, modelling and engineering design: (i) mechanics of materials (elasticity, plasticity, porous media, fracture, fatigue, damage, delamination, viscosity, creep, shrinkage, etc); (ii) mechanics of structures (dynamics, vibration, seismic response, soil-structure interaction, fluid-structure interaction, response to blast and impact, response to fire, structural stability, buckling, collapse behaviour); (iii) numerical modelling and experimental testing (numerical methods, simulation techniques, multi-scale modelling, computational modelling, laboratory testing, field testing, experimental measurements); (iv) design in traditional engineering materials (steel, concrete, steel-concrete composite, aluminium, masonry, timber); (v) innovative concepts, sustainable engineering and special structures (nanostructures, adaptive structures, smart structures, composite structures, glass structures, bio-inspired structures, shells, membranes, space structures, lightweight structures, etc); (vi) the engineering process and life-cycle considerations (conceptualisation, planning, analysis, design, optimization, construction, assembly, manufacture, maintenance, monitoring, assessment, repair, strengthening, retrofitting, decommissioning). Two versions of the papers are available: full papers of length 6 pages are included in the e-book, while short papers of length 2 pages, intended to be concise but self-contained summaries of the full papers, are in the printed book. This work will be of interest to civil, structural, mechanical, marine and aerospace engineers, as well as planners and architects.

This book presents various questions of continuum mechanical modeling in the context of experimental and numerical methods, in particular, multi-field problems that go beyond the standard models of continuum mechanics. In addition, it discusses dynamic problems and practical solutions in the field of numerical methods. It focuses on continuum mechanics, which is often overlooked in the traditional division of mechanics into statics, strength of materials and kinetics. The book is dedicated to Prof. Volker Ulbricht, who passed away on April 9, 2021.

The book is devoted to the retirement of Prof. Wilfried Becker—a liber amicorum for a well-known specialist in the field of structural mechanics. Many excellent scientists from institutions around the world wrote their scientific chapters, stressing the Becker’s influence to structural mechanics. Thus, this collection discusses a lot of important problems and applications of mechanics.

The aim of this work is to model and experimentally characterize the anisotropic material behavior of SMC composites on the macroscale with consideration of the microstructure. Temperature-dependent thermoelastic behavior and failure behavior are modeled and the corresponding material properties are determined experimentally. Additionally, experimental biaxial damage investigations are performed. A parameter identification merges modeling and experiments and validates the models.

This conference book contains papers presented at the 8th GACM Colloquium on Computational Mechanics for Young Scientists from Academia and Industry. The conference was held from August 28th – 30th, 2019 in Kassel, hosted by the Institute of Mechanics and Dynamics of the department for civil and environmental engineering and by the chair of Engineering Mechanics / Continuum Mechanics of the department for mechanical engineering of the University of Kassel. The aim of the conference is, to bring together young scientits who are engaged in academic and industrial research on Computational Mechanics and Computer Methods in Applied Sciences. It provides a plattform to present and discuss recent results from research efforts and industrial applications. In more than 150 presentations, given by young scientists, current scientific developments and advances in engineering practice in this field are presented and discussed. The contributions of the young researchers are supplemented by a poster session and plenary talks from four senior scientists from academia and industry as well as from the GACM Best PhD Award winners 2017 and 2018.