The steady increase in computational power induces an equally steady increase in the complexity of the engineering models and associated computer codes. This particularly affects the modeling of the mechanical response of materials. Material behavior is nowadays modeled in the strongly nonlinear range by tak ing into account finite strains, complex hysteresis effects, fracture phenomena and multiscale features. Progress in this field is of fundamental importance for many engineering disciplines, especially those concerned with material testing, safety, reliability and serviceability analyses of engineering structures. In recent years many important achievements have been made in the field of the theoretical formulation, the mathematical analysis and the numerical im plementation of deformation processes in solids. Computational methods and simulation techniques today play a central role in advancing the understanding of complex material behavior. Research in the field of "ComputationalMechan ics of Materials" is concerned with the development of mathematical models and numerical solution techniques for the simulation of material response. It is a very broad interdisciplinary field of science with inputs from traditional fields such as Applied Mechanics, Applied Mathematics, Materials Science, Solid State Physics and Information Technology. The intention of the IUTAM Symposium "Computational Mechanics of Solid Materials at Large Strains", held at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, from August 20-24, 200I, was to give a state of the art and a survey about recent developments in this field and to create perspectives for future research trends.
This book gives state-of-the-art information about recent developments in the field of computational modeling of solid materials at finite strains. It contains papers presented at the 'IUTAM Symposium on Computational Mechanics of Solid Materials at Large Strains'. Today, computational methods and simulation techniques play a central role in advancing the understanding of complex material behavior. Material behavior is nowadays modeled in the strongly nonlinear range by taking into account finite strains, complex hysteresis effect, fracture phenomena and multiscale features. Progress in this field is of fundamental importance for many engineering disciplines, especially those concerned with material testing, safety, reliability and serviceability analyses of engineering structures. This book summarizes recent progress in the modeling of solid materials undergoing deformations large strains, where the mathematical and computational analysis is highly challenging due to the nonlinear geometry. A further key aspect of the volume is the modeling of multiscale characteristics of materials by homogenization approaches and variational methods.
This volume provides a state of the art survey about theoretical and computational approaches to: modeling of large-strain elastic and inelastic deformations of solids on different length scales; mathematical analysis of finite inelastic deformations of solids based on incremental variational formulations for non-convex problems with microstructure developments; and, homogenization methods for the determination of effective overall properties of heterogeneous materials. This book allows researchers and engineers to get an excellent overview about the computational methods for solid materials at finite strains.
