Current Challenges in Mechanics of Materials

The Second Meeting of the Thin-Air Philosophical Society (TAPS), organized by Professor Demitris Kouris and sponsored by NSF, was held at the University of Wyoming in August of 2005. The presentations were posted on the website of the meeting.

The last morning of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of current challenges in the mechanics of materials. Topics include
• Applications of mechanics and materials
• Tools of the trade
• Mechanics of integrated small structures
• Genes, molecular architectures, and mechanical behaviors
• Integrating mechanics and chemistry
• Mechanics in the field of energy
• Sensing the world
• Multiscale simultaneous design
• Coupling of quantum mechanics with traditional mechanics at small scales; emergence of new computational tools and concepts
• Hierarchical top-down vs. Bottom-up engineering of models for complex systems: beyond multiscale modeling
• Continuum mechanics and thermodynamics

The participants did not aim for an exhaustive list of topics. Rather, examples were discussed, with sufficient diversity to reflect issues of general interest. Individual participants were then assigned to write paragraphs to describe these examples.