Generalized Continua - from the Theory to Engineering Applications von Holm (Hrsg.) Altenbach

On the roots of continuum mechanics in differential geometry -- a review.- Cosserat media.- Cosserat-type shells.- Cosserat-type rods.- Micromorphic media.- Electromagnetism and generalized continua.- Computational methods for generalized continua.

The need of generalized continua models is coming from practice. Complex material behavior sometimes cannot be presented by the classical Cauchy continua. At present the attention of the scientists in this field is focused on the most recent research items
? new models,
? application of well-known models to new problems,
? micro-macro aspects,
? computational effort, and
? possibilities to identify the constitutive equations
The new research directions are discussed in this volume - from the point of view of modeling and simulation, identification, and numerical methods.

From the reviews:

"The book under review gathers the lecture notes of the Corse 541 held at CISM in Udine, Italy. The editors and organizers of the course have selected a very important topic which deserves attention and investment of young intellectual forces. ? The overall result is a textbook of very high quality and the volume will surely become a very important source of information and knowledge, as, together with basic concepts and ideas, it includes some interesting original results." (Francesco dell'Isola, Mathematical Reviews, November, 2013)