Gérard A. Maugin – författare

In their 1909 publication Théorie des corps déformables, Eugène and François Cosserat made a historic contribution to materials science by establishing the fundamental principles of the mechanics of generalized continua. The chapters collected in this volume showcase the many areas of continuum mechanics that grew out of the foundational work of the Cosserat brothers.

The included contributions provide a detailed survey of the most recent theoretical developments in the field of generalized continuum mechanics. The diverse topics covered include: the properties of Cosserat media, micromorphic bodies, micropolar solids and fluids, weakly- and strongly-nonlocal theories, gradient theories of elasticity and plasticity, defect theory, everywhere-defective materials, bodies with fractal structure, as well as other related topics.

Mechanics of Generalized Continua can serve as a useful reference for graduate students and researchers in mechanical engineering, materials science, applied physics and applied mathematics.

Conceived as a series of more or less autonomous essays, the present book critically exposes the initial developments of continuum thermo-mechanics in a post Newtonian period extending from the creative works of the Bernoullis to the First World war, i.e., roughly during first the “Age of reason” and next the “Birth of the modern world”. The emphasis is rightly placed on the original contributions from the “Continental” scientists (the Bernoulli family, Euler, d’Alembert, Lagrange, Cauchy, Piola, Duhamel, Neumann, Clebsch, Kirchhoff, Helmholtz, Saint-Venant, Boussinesq, the Cosserat brothers, Caratheodory) in competition with their British peers (Green, Kelvin, Stokes, Maxwell, Rayleigh, Love,..). It underlines the main breakthroughs as well as the secondary ones. It highlights the role of scientists who left essential prints in this history of scientific ideas. The book shows how the formidable developments that blossomed in the twentieth century (and perused in a previous book of the author in the same Springer Series: “Continuum Mechanics through the Twentieth Century”, Springer 2013) found rich compost in the constructive foundational achievements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The pre-WWI situation is well summarized by a thorough analysis of treatises (Appell, Hellinger) published at that time. English translations by the author of most critical texts in French or German are given to the benefit of the readers.

Mixing scientific, historic and socio-economic vision, this unique book complements two previously published volumes on the history of continuum mechanics from this distinguished author. In this volume, Gérard A. Maugin looks at the period from the renaissance to the twentieth century and he includes an appraisal of the ever enduring competition between molecular and continuum modelling views. Chapters trace early works in hydraulics and fluid mechanics not covered in the other volumes and the author investigates experimental approaches, essentially before the introduction of a true concept of stress tensor. The treatment of such topics as the viscoelasticity of solids and plasticity, fracture theory, and the role of geometry as a cornerstone of the field, are all explored. Readers will find a kind of socio-historical appraisal of the seminal contributions by our direct masters in the second half of the twentieth century. The analysis of the teaching and research texts by Duhem, Poincaré and Hilbert on continuum mechanics is key: these provide the most valuable documentary basis on which a revival of continuum mechanics and its formalization were offered in the late twentieth century. Altogether, the three volumes offer a generous conspectus of the developments of continuum mechanics between the sixteenth century and the dawn of the twenty-first century. Mechanical engineers, applied mathematicians and physicists alike will all be interested in this work which appeals to all curious scientists for whom continuum mechanics as a vividly evolving science still has its own mysteries.