Ekkehard Ramm - Böcker

Finite Element Methods are used for numerous engineering applications where numerical solutions of partial differential equations are needed. As computers can now deal with the millions of parameters used in these methods, automatic error estimation and automatic adaptation of the utilised method (according to this error estimation), has become a hot research topic.This text offers comprehensive coverage of this new field of automatic adaptation and error estimation, bringing together the work of eight outstanding researchers in this field who have completed a six year national research project within the German Science Foundation. The result is a state-of-the-art work in true reference style. Each chapter is self-contained and covers theoretical, algorithmic and software presentations as well as solved problems. A main feature consists of several carefully elaborated benchmarks of 2D- and 3D- applications. First book to go beyond the Finite Element Method in itselfCovers material from a new research areaPresents benchmarks of 2D- and 3D- applicationsFits with the new trend for genetic strategies in engineering

Thin shells are very popular structures in many different branches of engineering. There are the domes, water and cooling towers, the contain­ ments in civil engineering, the pressure vessels and pipes in mechanical and nuclear engineering, storage tanks and platform components in marine and offshore engineering, the car bodies in the automobile industry, planes, rockets and space structures in aeronautical engineering, to mention only a few examples of the broad spectrum of application. In addition there is the large applied mechanics group involved in all the computational and experimental work in this area. Thin shells are in a way optimal structures. They play the role of·the "primadonnas" among all kinds of structures. Their performance can be extraordinary, but they can also be very sensitive. The susceptibility to buckling is a typical example. David Bushnell says in his recent review paper entitled "Buckling of Shells - Pitfall for DeSigners": "To the layman buckling is a mysterious, perhaps even awe inspiring phenomenon that transforms objects originally imbued with symmetrical beauty into junk".

This work gives a modern, up-to-date account of recent developments in computational multiscale mechanics. Both upscaling and concurrent computing methodologies will be addressed for a range of application areas in computational solid and fluid mechanics: Scale transitions in materials, turbulence in fluid-structure interaction problems, multiscale/multilevel optimization, multiscale poromechanics.A Dutch-German research group that consists of qualified and well-known researchers in the field has worked for six years on the topic of computational multiscale mechanics. This text provides a unique opportunity to consolidate and disseminate the knowledge gained in this project. The addition of chapters written by experts outside this working group provides a broad and multifaceted view of this rapidly evolving field.