Finnish Mechanics Days gives new impetus to collaboration between fields of mechanics

The specific theme of the conference was cooperation across borders.

“It is important to bring academic research together with application-oriented engineering research as well as product development from various areas of mechanics, ranging from solid and soil mechanics to fluid mechanics", says Assistant Professor Jarkko Niiranen from the Department of Civil Engineering.

"It was enriching to notice how different approaches – theoretical, computational and experimental research – have their own role to play in the whole, whether it‘s research that creates new understanding or new technologies, or high-quality industrial innovations."

Finnish Mechanics Days provides a discussion forum for researchers, engineers, teachers and other professionals, as well as possibilities for sharing ideas, networking and collaborating.

This year the conference was attended by more experts than ever before: nearly 150 experts from different fields and 15 partner companies and communities.

"The key speakers included a business executive from Finland and prestigious emeritus professors from Sweden (KTH) and Denmark (DTU). During the two-day conference, almost one hundred presentations were held”, Niiranen notes with satisfaction.

The themes covered theoretical, computational and experimental mechanics of solids, soils, rocks and fluids – including a large variety of engineering applications: mechanics of materials, structural mechanics, fluid dynamics, fracture mechanics, fatigue, thermomechanics and thermodynamics, micromechanics, contact mechanics, structural optimization, micromechanics; contact mechanics; structural optimization, fluid structure interaction, numerical analysis, multibody dynamics, mechatronics, design of structures and machines, as well as industrial and medical applications of mechanics.

The first Finnish Mechanics Days conference was held in 1982. Since then, the event has been organized every three years. This year, the event was arranged by Aalto University’s Department of Civil Engineering. Also the Department of Mechanical Engineering, VTT and CSC had participation in the organizing committee.

Photo: Topi Kaaresoja (left) from partner company Infradex presents the properties of thermal imaging technologies to professor Jarmai Karoly.

Enquiries: http://civileng.aalto.fi/en/smp2018/

Assistant Professor Jarkko Niiranen, [email protected]