EUROMECH Colloquium 575 - Contact Mechanics and Coupled Problems in Surface Phenomena

Contact mechanics is a fundamental discipline of the engineering sciences and plays a major role in the understanding of a large number of physical phenomena related to surface interactions between solids. Contact problems are essential for adhesion, friction, capillarity, hydrophobicity, lubrication, thermal and electric conduction across interfaces, control of frictionally-induced vibrations and wear. Moreover, applications cover a large number of scales and range from natural systems like geological faults, engineering systems such as structural adhesives, protective coatings, seals, brakes, clutches, down to micro- or nano-devices used in electro-mechanical systems, and to biological materials and bio-inspired interfaces. In this very active research area, progresses have been made as far as the mathematical description of unilateral contact problems, the uniqueness of their solution and the development of computational methods are concerned. The purpose of this EUROMECH colloquium is to provide an exploratory multi-disciplinary workshop where engineers, mathematicians and physicists can meet and discuss about the latest trends in mathematical modelling, computational methods and experimental research on coupled problems in surface phenomena, a topic still largely unchallenged due to its inherent complexity. In particular, areas of interest regard the solution of contact problems with smooth or rough boundaries in the presence of multiple fields (mechanical, thermal, electro-magnetic, hygrometric fields, chemical reactions, etc.). These multi-physics problems are important in geomechanics and civil engineering (chemo-mechanical coupling in meso-scale models of soil and concrete; fluid-structure interaction at structural interfaces; thermo-hygro-mechanical coupling at interfaces for building materials; contemporaneous presence of fracture and contact at interfaces), in materials for energy applications (thermo-chemo-mechanical coupling at interfaces in solid oxide fuel cells; thermo-electro-mechanical coupling at cracks in solar cells), in bio-mechanics (effect of humidity on contact and wear of hard tissues), in mechanical engineering (coupled tangential and normal contact problems), electronics (thermo-mechanical response of bi-material interfaces in MEMS; sealing of bi-material interfaces), and in a wide range of other surface phenomena.