The IUTAM Symposium on Enhancing Material Performance by Exploiting Instabilities and Damage Evolution was held on June 6-9, 2022 at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of Polish Academy of Sciences (IPPT PAN). It was dedicated to how in a novel way we may take advantage of introducing and controlling complex deformation modes into material systems at different scales of observation to enhance their properties, functionalities and performance. It also featured presentations and discussions on the impact of advancement in manufacturing, characterization and computational techniques on our capabilities to improve the understanding, control and exploitation of instabilities and damage evolution.
The symposium Chair and Organizer was Assoc. Prof. Katarzyna Kowalczyk-Gajewska (IPPT PAN, Poland) and the Symposium Co-Chair and Co-Organizer was Assoc. Prof. Ankit Srivastava (Texas A&M University, USA).
The International Union for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) is an affiliation of about 500 mechanicians in about 50 countries, and involving about 20 associated organizations, including the International Council for Science (ICSU).
The symposium was attended by many prominent experts in the field of mechanics of materials from universities and research units around the world. There were scientists from the United States, Poland, France, Spain, Denmark, India, Great Britain, Netherlands, Switzerland and Israel. Many well-known and respected professors delivered their lectures at the symposium, among others Vikram Deshpande (Cambridge University, UK), William Curtin (EPFL, Switzerland), Samuel Forest (Mines ParisTech, France), Krishnaswamy Ravi-Chandar (The University of Texas at Austin, USA) and Henryk Petryk (IPPT PAN, Poland and IUTAM representative).
There were also representatives from Stanford University (USA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States), Purdue University (USA), Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), Indian Institutes of Technology (India) and others.
According to the IUTAM regulations, only people invited by the Symposium Scientific Committee, may deliver the lecture at the Symposium.
During 15 sessions 34 lectures were delivered which were dedicated among others to making use of local microstructural instabilities in metamaterials to tailor their macroscopic properties, or to control the way the voids are evolving in order to hinder crack propagation in metallic and ceramic materials. Initiation of instabilities and damage evolution have been also discussed in the context of dynamic loadings or anisotropic materials. The subject of material microstructure evolution accompanying damage growth as well as possibilities of theoretical description of the phenomena were also undertaken.
The lectures were accompanied by a lively discussion, both during the session and in the lobby.
There was also a poster session during which invited PhD students and young employees of IPPT PAN presented their research on the subject of the symposium.
More information about the Symposium, including a book of abstracts of all lectures, can be found at: http://iutam2022warsaw.ippt.pan.pl/
Information about IUTAM Symposia can be found on the IUTAM webpage. It is worth mentioning that the 26th International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM 2024), the main even organized by IUTAM organization every four years, will be held from 25 to 30 August 2024 in Daegu, Korea.
