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 an e-book, while short papers of length 2 pages, intended to be concise but self-contained summaries of the full papers, are in this printed book. This work will be of interest to civil, structural, mechanical, marine and aerospace engineers, as well as planners and architects.
Alphose Zingoni is Professor of Structural Engineering and Mechanics in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. After completing a PhD on shells at Imperial College London in 1992, he won a Research Fellowship of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and remained at Imperial College for a further two years, during which period his interest in symmetry began. Following a 3-year term as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Zimbabwe, he moved to the University of Cape Town, where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2002, and served as the Head of the Department of Civil Engineering from 2008 to 2012.
His research has focused on two main areas, namely the development of analytical methods for shell structures, and the use of group theory in studying problems involving symmetry in structural mechanics. He has written over 100 papers on these topics, and authored 4 books, including “Shell Structures in Civil and Mechanical Engineering” (ICE Publishing, 2018) and “Vibration Analysis and Structural Dynamics for Civil Engineers: Essentials and Group-Theoretic Formulations” (Taylor & Francis, 2015). Over the past 20 years, he has also guest-edited 7 special issues of international journals. He is Founder and Chair of the Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation (SEMC) series of international conferences, held in Cape Town every 3 years since 2001, and has edited the Proceedings of all 7 conferences held to date. He currently serves on the editorial boards of several international journals, and has served on the scientific committees of numerous international conferences.
His honours and recognitions include being elected a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers (London), a Fellow of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering (Zurich), a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering, and a Member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa. In 2016, he was elected a Fellow of the University of Cape Town in recognition of “original distinguished academic work”, and in 2019, he won the University of Cape Town Book Award for his book on shell structures. He is registered as a Chartered Engineer with the Engineering Council of the UK, and as a Professional Engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa.
