Gruppo AIMETA proponente

GIMC

Titolo

Novel Approaches in Computational Mechanics

Organizzatori

• Giovanni Garcea, Università degli Studi di Calabria, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Michele Marino, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Francesco Marmo, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.

Descrizione

Computational Mechanics has become a central research area across many branches of engineering, including Civil, Mechanical, Aerospace, Naval, Environmental, and Biomedical Engineering. In recent years, an active and steadily growing research effort has been devoted to the development of innovative and highly efficient computational techniques, enabling the analysis of both classical and emerging mechanical problems with increased accuracy, robustness, and reliability.

Significant progress has been achieved in the formulation of advanced discretization methods, such as Isogeometric Analysis, Mimetic Finite Differences, Virtual Element Methods, extended Finite Element Methods (X-FEM), immersed methods, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), particle-based approaches, and related techniques. In parallel, new numerical frameworks have been developed for the simulation of complex engineering phenomena, including phase-field modeling, fluid–structure interaction, and
multiphysics problems. Recent advances also concern numerical tools for structural optimization, computational design, and stochastic and uncertainty-aware simulations.

The Italian Group of Computational Mechanics (GIMC) organizes this minisymposium with the aim of providing a forum for discussing the advantages, limitations, emerging opportunities, and applications of state-of-the-art methods in Computational Mechanics. The minisymposium seeks to bring together researchers working on the conception, development, mathematical analysis, and validation of advanced numerical methods and modern computational techniques, as well as scholars engaged in innovative applications of more classical computational approaches.

Aree di interesse

• Mechanics of solids, fluids, and structures
• Advanced numerical methods for computational mechanics
• Formulations and algorithms for complex and multiphysics problems
• Structural optimization and computational design
• Innovative applications and validation of computational methods

Gruppo AIMETA proponente

GIMC

Titolo

Physics, Data, and Hybrids: Rethinking Modeling Strategies in Computational Mechanics

Organizzatori

• Mauro Corrado, Politecnico di Torino, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Stefano Mariani, Politecnico di Milano, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Francesco Regazzoni, Politecnico di Milano, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Salvatore Sessa, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.

Descrizione

The rapid diffusion of machine learning and model-free approaches, driven by their growing popularity across applied sciences, but also by EU strategic initiatives promoting data-centric innovation, trustworthy AI, and digital sovereignty, has brought renewed attention to their promised advantages in terms of flexibility, automation, and computational efficiency. Such an accelerating shift toward datadriven modeling naturally has raised fundamental and sometimes controversial questions within the community:

• Are data-driven models merely sophisticated interpolators, effective only for relatively simple or well-posed problems in mechanics, or are they able to generalize to significantly different scenarios?
• Is the often observed loss of physical interpretability in data-driven approaches an intrinsic limitation of these methods, or does it simply reflect our still immature understanding of their potential physical meaning?
• To what extent can physical principles be relaxed, embedded, or even replaced by data?
• Do hybrid physics–data approaches offer a robust and reliable compromise, or do they risk diluting the strengths of both paradigms, ultimately inheriting their limitations rather than their advantages?
• Do the often-claimed gains in computational efficiency withstand careful quantitative assessment, sufficiently justifying the additional modeling, data collection, and training effort?

This minisymposium aims to stimulate an open and critical debate on the role of data-driven strategies – ranging from model-free approaches to machine learning techniques – versus classical physics-based models in theoretical and applied mechanics.

Moreover, a distinctive feature of mechanics, compared to many other fields where machine learning has thrived, is the absence of true big data. Available datasets are often sparse, noisy, heterogeneous, and multi-fidelity, originating from simulations, experiments, or operational measurements with varying levels of uncertainty. This raises a further key question that the minisymposium seeks to address: should data scarcity and inconsistency be regarded as a fundamental bottleneck for data-driven approaches, or rather as an opportunity to develop novel methodologies that explicitly leverage physics, structure, and prior knowledge to learn effectively from limited information?

The minisymposium welcomes contributions presenting recent advances in pure data-driven methods, physics-informed and hybrid strategies, and systematic comparisons between machine learning, modelfree, and traditional physics-based approaches. Emphasis will be placed on methodological soundness, physical interpretability, robustness to data limitations, uncertainty quantification, and rigorously quantified computational performance. The overarching goal is to clarify strengths, limitations, and open challenges, and to foster a constructive dialogue on the future role of data-driven modeling in mechanics.

Aree di interesse

• Mechanics of solids and materials
• Fluid mechanics and fluid–structure interaction
• Dynamics of mechanical systems and structural mechanics
• Computational methods and numerical modeling in mechanics
• Model identification, uncertainty, and validation    

Gruppi AIMETA proponenti

GBMA, GIMC (mini-simposio congiunto)

Titolo

Computational Biomechanics

Organizzatori

• Elisabetta Monaldo, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Alessandro Nitti, Politecnico di Bari, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Nicola Sancisi, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Michele Torre, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.

Descrizione

The increasing integration between Computational Mechanics and Biomechanics is opening new perspectives for the modeling and simulation of complex biological systems across multiple scales (from single cells and microorganisms to tissues and organs), as well as bioprostheses and advanced medical devices. This mini-symposium aims to bring together the Italian communities of Computational Mechanics and Biomechanics to discuss emerging challenges at their interface, spanning biomedical, zoological, botanical, and bioinspired contexts.

Biological tissues, living organisms, and implantable devices share key mechanical features: strong nonlinearities, multiphysics couplings, hierarchical organization, growth and remodeling, adaptation and evolution, and significant variability across individuals, species, and environments. Their description requires advanced structural models — including shell, membrane, and beam formulations — particularly suited for thin and slender structures such as cardiovascular walls, soft layered tissues, plant tissues, cellular membranes, flagella and cilia.

In parallel, bioprostheses and medical devices (e.g., heart valves, vascular grafts, stents, orthopedic implants, and soft robotic surgical tools) demand accurate structural and kinematic modeling. From a structural mechanics standpoint, challenges include large deformations, anisotropy, fatigue, contact, stability, and long-term durability under cyclic physiological loads. From a kinematic perspective, special attention is required for deployment mechanisms (e.g., self-expanding or balloon-expandable devices), articulated and compliant mechanisms, fluiddriven actuation, and device–tissue interaction, often involving complex constraints and large relative motions. Coupled fluid–structure interaction and contact problems are central in cardiovascular and minimally invasive applications.

The mini-symposium will focus on multiscale and multiphysics modeling of biological tissues and implantable devices; computational modeling of cellular mechanics and microorganism dynamics; advanced structural and kinematic formulations for living and engineered systems; fluid–structure interaction in physiological environments and in natural or complex fluid media; modeling of locomotion and propulsion in fluids and complex environments; growth, remodeling and mechanobiology; device deployment and performance optimization; patientspecific and image-based simulations; reduced-order and data-driven modeling; uncertainty quantification; and high-performance computing strategies and novel computational methods for large-scale biomechanical problems. Contributions addressing comparative and bioinspired biomechanics are also encouraged.

The goal is to foster cross-disciplinary exchange, stimulate new collaborations, and promote methodological developments that strengthen the role of computational biomechanics in biomedical engineering and clinical applications.

Aree di interesse

• Computational Mechanics
• Biomechanics
• Applied Mechanics    

Gruppi AIMETA proponenti

GAMeN, GIMC, GMA, GAMS (mini-simposio congiunto)

Titolo

Materials and Structures Across Scales: Modeling, Simulation, and Uncertainty Quantification

Organizzatori

• Raffaele Barretta, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Massimiliano Gioffrè, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Michele Marino, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Marco Pingaro, Sapienza Università di Roma, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.

Descrizione

The mini-symposium aims to bring together theoretical, computational, and applied contributions devoted to the development and application of multiscale approaches and methods for the advanced modeling of materials and structures, including in the presence of
uncertainties. The focus is on the modeling and analysis of problems across different scales of observation and on the associated coupling procedures, from the micro- and nanostructural levels up to the macroscopic response, with particular reference to analytical, computational, and probabilistic homogenization techniques, micro–macro strategies (including FE² and hierarchical methods), reduced-order models, and discrete–continuum coupling approaches.

The mini-symposium welcomes contributions on multiscale localization phenomena, instabilities, damage, and fracture, as well as on scale effects and unconventional behaviors of advanced materials and structures, including nanomaterials, nanocomposites, metamaterials, and nanostructures. Particular attention is also devoted to uncertainty quantification and its integration within multiscale modeling frameworks. Special emphasis is placed on multiphysics modeling, characterization, and design of functional materials and innovative systems, also in the presence of complex couplings among mechanical, physical, structural, and probabilistic phenomena.

Aree di interesse

The objective is to foster interaction among the communities of:

• Materials mechanics
• Computational mechanics
• Stochastic mechanics
• Multiscale mechanics

by promoting interdisciplinary exchange on advanced methods for modeling, simulation, and design, with attention to both theoretical developments and emerging engineering and industrial applications.

Gruppo AIMETA proponente

GIMC

Titolo

Fluid mechanics of phase-change

Organizzatori

• Alessio Roccon, University of Udine, Italy; Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer, Austria, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
• Mirko Gallo, Sapienza University of Rome, Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.

Descrizione

The interplay between fluid flow and phase change phenomena—evaporation, condensation, boiling, melting, and solidification—is fundamental to a vast array of natural and industrial processes. Instances of these interactions are represented by ice-melting in polar regions and glaciers, fiery lava flows and boiling in nuclear reactors. The wide range of scales involved—from the nanoscale bubble nucleation to the kilometer-scale geophysical flows—poses significant challenges for both experimental and numerical investigations. Over the past 25 years, interface-resolved simulation methods for phase changing flows have matured considerably and advances in imaging and data acquisition have greatly improved the possibilities to perform accurate measurements. These recent developments and the rising importance of phase change phenomena in climate modeling, energy production, and thermal management, have rendered this topic an emerging and active research field.

Aree di interesse

• Mechanics of fluids
• Computational Mechanics
• Advanced numerical methods for phase-change flows
• Multiscale modeling of interfacial transport processes
• Theoretical and computational modeling of nucleation events
• Condensation, evaporation, and boiling phenomena