Mechanics and Physics of Structures
Section description
Mission and aim: The mission of our scientific team is to transcend the traditional section boundaries defined by specific civil engineering applications, and to seek a stronger link between the curiosity- and application-driven research directions. We do this by developing new physical insights and know-how in the field of mechanics and physics of structures. Specifically, we strive at identifying and improving the critical small-and large-scale processes in the structural response that govern the lifecycle.
Methods: We use analytical or semi-analytical approaches, field, lab and/or scaled-model experiments, and destructive and non-destructive techniques.
The main research themes of our group are:
- Time-variant linear and nonlinear mechanics of interfaces: contact force and wear characterization, loading history evaluation, development and validation of analytical and phenomenological interface models and surface conditioning and optimisation.
- Metamaterials: acoustic and vibration mitigation
- Condition monitoring: damage characterization, destructive and non-destructive testing, innovative and efficient monitoring methodologies, and residual life assessment.
- Uncertainty quantification and data-driven analysis: grey-box models (combination of physics-based and data-driven models), uncertainty quantification (probabilistic and non-probabilistic), manufacturing variability assessment, model updating, sensors placement, decision making.
- Dynamic system-structure interaction: operationally and environmentally induced vibration assessment, source characterization, identification of interfaces and model embedding, short- and long-term dynamic processes.
Our research themes are applied to a broad range of Engineering Structures, including: wind turbines, bridges, towers, quay walls, railway infrastructure, ship yards and energy converters, to name a few.
We are supporting our research with National, European and Industrial funding. We actively seek to collaborate with other sections within the Department of Engineering Structures, throughout the faculty and TU Delft as a whole, and with other groups in the Netherlands and around the world to form research consortia. We also welcome any early-career and experienced visiting researcher willing to to spend time at our group to foster collaborative work.
If you are interested in finding out more about our research, please visit our Publications page, or visit the individual research pages of our section members.
Keywords:
Tribology, Linear and Nonlinear Dynamics
Structural Degradation, Vibration Control
Monitoring, Uncertainty Quantification, Physics-informed Machine learning
Teaching
We have experience in teaching in a wide range of topics (from kinematics and kinetics concepts to Experimental Modal Analysis and material sciences), using a variety of teaching approaches: traditional, flipped classroom and team teaching, across the bachelor and master courses.
Whether it comes to teaching or to supervision, our aim is to actively engage with the student, to encourage both self-study and cooperative learning, to transmit the relevance of the topic under investigation and to fuel his/her development to become a future engineer or scientist.
A full list of courses in which we are involved with can be found on the Education page.
International leadership
Our international leadership is proven by our strong track-record in publications and comprehensive activities in the scientific community, including the organization of international conferences and workshops, participation to international scientific committees and reviewing for research foundations.
We have been contributed to the organization of international conferences, including the International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis, MPSVA 2022, the 12th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2023, the 11th European Nonlinear Oscillation Conference, ENOC 2024, and the Recent Advances in Structural Dynamics Conference, RASD2024 .
We have also been the main organisers of international scientific workshops including the Physics Enhancing Machine Learning in applied solid mechanics (2022) and SQUATS 22 NL (2022).
We have active international collaborations with leading research centres, including the MIT Center for Computational Science and Engineering (USA), the University of Oxford (UK), the University of Sheffield (UK), the University of Strathclyde (UK) and KU Leuven (UK).
We have held/are holding editorial board positions in the Journal of Sound and Vibration, Data-Centric Engineering and ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems.
A list of our publications can be found here, or visit the individual webpages for more information