No engineering discipline has done more to advance industry and transform our world than Mechanics. Theoretical and Applied Mechanics examines the behavior of fluids, solids, and complex materials in response to static and dynamic forces. Our understanding of Mechanics has enabled technological developments that impact all areas of life. Going forward, improvements to the engineering mechanics toolset will be a vital key to achieving a cleaner sustainable environment and a circular economy.
Computational Mechanics is a sub-discipline of Mechanics that strives to develop effective computational methods and devices to better characterize, predict, and simulate the physical behaviors and performance of engineered systems. The growth of computational mechanics over the past three decades has been profound, and it is rapidly transforming classical mechanics as it provides ever more powerful computational tools capable of simulating ever more complex systems.
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Research group and achievements
The Computational Mechanics research group is led by Professor Aki Mikkola, who is internationally respected for his work in multibody dynamics and nonlinear finite element methods. Aki’s highly regarded team of researchers has successfully developed formulations and methods that describe large deformation and has effectively applied flexible multibody dynamics to the analysis and real-time simulation of many classes of mobile and industrial machines and to the biomechanical modeling of human motion.
A measure of the quality of the Computational Mechanics research team is the recognition it has received from the prestigious Academy of Finland.
Since 2000, the group has received three grants for researcher mobility, nine research projects (worth €3.2 million), and funding for four postdoctoral research projects (Sopanen, Dmitrochenko, Matikainen, Klodowski).
Professor Mikkola is currently serving as editor in chief of the journal of Multibody System Dynamics. One current member, D.Sc. (Tech) Marko Matikainen is fully funded as an Academy Research Fellow working on the development of Cosserat point elements for the hybrid modelling of soft tissue in multibody system dynamics.
Professor Mikkola also serves as the Director of the university’s MORE SIM Research Platform, a 5-year collaboration of LUT Schools working to take simulator-driven design and manufacturing to the next level by introducing real-time simulation tools with real-world functionality. These tools will make it possible for industry to involve multiple stakeholders in product development and manufacturing and dramatically improve their development and product lifecycle processes.
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