Erwin Stein - 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

This course with 6 lecturers intends to present a systematic survey of recent re­ search results of well-known scientists on error-controlled adaptive finite element methods in solid and structural mechanics with emphasis to problem-dependent concepts for adaptivity, error analysis as well as h- and p-adaptive refinement techniques including meshing and remeshing. Challenging applications are of equal importance, including elastic and elastoplastic deformations of solids, con­ tact problems and thin-walled structures. Some major topics should be pointed out, namely: (i) The growing importance of goal-oriented and local error estimates for quan­ tities of interest—in comparison with global error estimates—based on dual finite element solutions; (a) The importance of the p-version of the finite element method in conjunction with parameter-dependent hierarchical approximations of the mathematical model, for example in boundary layers of elastic plates; (Hi) The choice of problem-oriented error measures in suitable norms, consider­ ing residual, averaging and hierarchical error estimates in conjunction with the efficiency of the associated adaptive computations; (iv) The importance of implicit local postprocessing with enhanced test spaces in order to get constant-free, i. e. absolute-not only relative-discretizati- error estimates; (v) The coupling of error-controlled adaptive discretizations and the mathemat­ ical modeling in related subdomains, such as boundary layers. The main goals of adaptivity are reliability and efficiency, combined with in­ sight and access to controls which are independent of the applied discretization methods. By these efforts, new paradigms in Computational Mechanics should be realized, namely verifications and even validations ofengineering models.

This collection of 23 articles is the output of lectures in special sessions on “The History of Theoretical, Material and Computational Mechanics” within the yearly conferences of the GAMM in the years 2010 in Karlsruhe, Germany, 2011 in Graz, Austria, and in 2012 in Darmstadt, Germany; GAMM is the “Association for Applied Mathematics and Mechanics”, founded in 1922 by Ludwig Prandtl and Richard von Mises. The contributions in this volume discuss different aspects of mechanics. They are related to solid and fluid mechanics in general and to specific problems in these areas including the development of numerical solution techniques. In the first part the origins and developments of conservation principles in mechanics and related variational methods are treated together with challenging applications from the 17th to the 20th century. Part II treats general and more specific aspects of material theories of deforming solid continua and porous soils. and Part III presents important theoretical and engineering developments in fluid mechanics, beginning with remarkable inventions in old Egypt, the still dominating role of the Navier-Stokes PDEs for fluid flows and their complex solutions for a wide field of parameters as well as the invention of pumps and turbines in the 19th and 20th century. The last part gives a survey on the development of direct variational methods – the Finite Element Method – in the 20th century with many extensions and generalizations.

The IUTAM-Symposium on "Finite Inelastic Deformations - Theory and Applications" took place from August 19 to 23, 1991, at the University of Hannover, Germany, with 75 participants from 14 countries. Scope of the symposium was a fundamental treatment of new developments in plasticity and visco-plasticity at finite strains. This covered the phenomenological material theory based on continuum mechanics as well as the treatment of microstructural phenomena detected by precise experimental datas. In a restricted number, lectures on new experi­ mental facilities for measuring finite strains were also implemented into the symposium. Another important topic of the symposium was the treatment of reliable and effective computational methods for solving engineering problems with finite inelastic strains. Wi­ thin this context it was an essential feature that theory, numerical and computational analysis were be seen in an integrated way. In total 9 sessions with 37 lectures, many of them given by well known keynote-lecturers, and a poster session with 10 contributions met fully our expectations of a high ranking up-to-date forum for the interaction of four topics, namely the physical and mathematical modelling of finite strain inelastic deformations including localizations and damage as well as the achievements in the numerical analysis and implementation and the solution of complicated engineering systems. Special and important features were reliable material datas from macroscopic and microscopic tests as well as test results of complex engineering problems, like deep drawing and extrusion.