PROGRAM
Program at a glance
AVAILABLE SOON
> Mini-symposia
MS01
Piezoelectric Vibration Control: Modelling, Tuning and Applications
Marta Berardengo, Department of Mechanical, Energy, Management and Transportation Engineering, Università degli Studi di Genova, Genoa, Italy
Jan Høgsberg, Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Boris Lossouarn, Laboratoire de Mécanique des Structures et des Systèmes Couplés, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris, France
Stefano Manzoni, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
> Click Here to read MS01 description
Description: Piezoelectric transducers play a key role in modern vibration control strategies, offering efficient and compact solutions for vibration attenuation in lightweight structures, from nano- to macro-scale applications. Owing to their technological maturity, reliability, and favorable force-to-size ratio, piezoelectric devices have become well-established components in smart structural systems across a wide range of engineering and industrial fields.
By exploiting both the direct and inverse piezoelectric effects, the transducers can simultaneously perform sensing and actuation functions, leading to simple system architectures offering high control capabilities. This versatility allows piezoelectric devices to be implemented in passive, semi-active, hybrid, and fully active vibration control solutions. Furthermore, they enable the development of high-performance control strategies, where damping characteristics can be finely tuned and adapted to changing or uncertain operating conditions, offering superior performance compared to purely mechanical treatments. These principles also offer opportunities for the design of advanced vibration attenuation concepts such as nonlinear energy sinks, adaptive mounts, or piezoelectric-based metastructures.
This Mini-Symposium aims to bring together researchers and practitioners working on smart piezoelectric vibration control systems. Contributions are welcomed on theoretical developments, modelling techniques, control design, experimental validation, and practical applications, ranging from laboratory-scale studies to industrial implementations.
Contact: boris.lossouarn@lecnam.net
MS02
Mechanical Metamaterials for Advanced Structural Design and Manufacturing
Andrea Spaggiari, Department of Sciences and Method for Engineering,
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Luke Mizzi, Department of Sciences and Method for Engineering,
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
> Click Here to read MS02 description
Description: Mechanical metamaterials are opening new frontiers in manufacturing, structural optimization, and materials design. This Mini-Symposium will highlight recent innovations in the design, modeling, fabrication, and experimental testing of these emerging materials, with a particular focus on future engineering applications.
The rapid development and widespread adoption of additive manufacturing technologies have significantly accelerated the realization of architected material systems. These structures can integrate multiple functions within a single component while achieving lightweight configurations and unconventional mechanical or physical responses, such as auxetic behavior, tailored stiffness, enhanced energy absorption, and negative thermal expansion.
By exploiting geometry-driven properties, mechanical metamaterials can outperform conventional materials and structures, enabling innovative solutions to a wide range of engineering challenges. Potential applications include integrated actuation, impact and energy absorption, structural optimization, and weight reduction in advanced engineering systems, including aerospace and biomedical applications.
Bringing together leading experts and researchers, this Mini-Symposium will focus on key topics including metamaterial design strategies, computational modeling, experimental characterization, manufacturing approaches, and the application of mechanical metamaterials in advanced structural systems.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Auxetic Mechanical Metamaterials
- Composite, Functionally-Graded and Hierarchical Metamaterials
- Metamaterials for Biomedical Applications
- Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing in Metamaterial Design
- Stress Analysis and Failure Modes of Mechanical Metamaterials
- Impact and Energy Absorbance of Metamaterials
- Parametric and Machine Learning Methods for Efficient Metamaterial Design
- Mechanical Metamaterials in Aerospace and Automotive Engineering
Contact: andrea.spaggiari@unimore.it
MS03
Nonlinear Smart Structures and Metamaterials: Methods, Modelling and Applications
Kevin Dekemele, Post-Doctoral research at University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
Olivier Thomas, Full Professor at Arts et Métier Institute of Technology (ENSAM), Lille, France
Bart Van Damme, Scientist at Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA)
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Description: Smart structures and metamaterials are increasingly exploiting nonlinear phenomena to achieve functionalities that cannot be obtained using conventional linear approaches. Nonlinear effects arising from geometric, (electro)mechanical can be intentionally harnessed to enhance energy transfer, adaptive behaviour, and robustness to varying operating conditions. Examples include nonlinear resonators, nonlinear energy sinks, bistable and multistable mechanisms, nonlinear piezoelectric shunts, adaptive metastructures, and nonlinear locally resonant metamaterials.
The analysis and design of such systems require advanced modelling approaches, numerical techniques, reduced-order models, system identification methods, and experimental validation procedures capable of capturing strongly nonlinear and often multi-physics dynamics. Recent developments have also enabled the integration of smart materials and transducers into nonlinear structures and metamaterials, creating new opportunities for passive, semi-active, hybrid, and active control strategies and energy harvesting.
This Mini-Symposium aims to bring together researchers working on the modelling, analysis, identification, design, and application of nonlinear smart structures and metamaterials. Contributions covering theoretical, numerical, experimental, and industrial aspects are welcome.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Nonlinear dynamics of smart structures and metastructures
- Nonlinear metamaterials and locally resonant systems
- Nonlinear energy transfer and energy pumping mechanisms
- Nonlinear electromechanical systems and piezoelectric shunts
- Reduced-order modelling and model reduction techniques
- Numerical and analytical methods for nonlinear systems
- Experimental nonlinear dynamics and system identification
- Wave propagation and nonlinear wave control
- Adaptive, tunable and reconfigurable metamaterials
- Passive, semi-active, hybrid and active nonlinear vibration control
- Industrial applications of nonlinear smart structures and metamaterials
Contact: kevin.dekemele@uliege.be
MS04
Deployable and sliding flexible structures
Jakob Scheidl, Institute of Mechanics and Mechatronics, TU Wien, Austria
Alexander Humer, Institute of Technical Mechanics, JKU Linz, Austria
Francesco Dal Corso, Deparment of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Italy
> Click Here to read MS04 description
Description: Deployable and sliding flexible structures are characterized by a relative motion with respect to their surroundings. The range of engineering applications featuring structures of this kind is vast and still growing, especially due to recent advances in the field of smart structures related to soft robotics, biomechanics and deployable actuators. These systems exhibit rich dynamics and feature various sources of nonlinearity along with the added complexity of structures traveling through an open domain and interacting with moving or stationary boundaries.
This mini-symposium targets contributions from all engineering disciplines focusing on the consistent mechanical modeling, formal analysis and numerical simulation of moving or deployable flexible structures. Topics of specific interest include inelastic constitutive behavior, phenomena related to contact and friction, large deformations, variable-length structures, buckling and dynamic stability, structural optimization and control, fluid- structure interaction and coupled field problems.
We welcome theoretical and computational submissions addressing academic or applied problems, related (but not limited) to the research fields of soft robotics, biomechanics, manufacturing, aerospace engineering or process engineering. Other contributions that fit the theme of the mini-symposium, including experimental work, are also welcome.
Contact: jakob.scheidl@tuwien.ac.at
> Special Sessions
SS01
“Wind Turbine Monitoring" and “Smart Actuators and Control"
Athanasios Barlas, DTU, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, Denmark
Josep M Bergadà, UPC, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
> Click Here to read SS01 description
Description: Nowadays wind turbine blades are passive devices, then for a given blade design the turbine adapts to different wind conditions by regulating the rotor speed and the blade pitch angle. This adaptation involves that the Angle of Attack (AoA) is modified along the entire Wind Turbine (WT) blade span, which in turn promotes sub-optimal local aerodynamic operation, with slow reaction to local inflow fluctuations. The controllability of the Boundary Layer (BL) along the blade span is simply non-existent, although passive devices like vortex generators are often used to reduce the boundary layer separation and some three dimensionality effects. The nowadays lack of controllability brings large dynamic forces acting on the blade, generating a power loss at the WT inboard while increasing the load at the outboard [1,2]. High capacity rotors are particularly suffering from the poor flow controllability along the blade span provided by the actual pitch control systems, therefore novel designs with actuators capable of acting locally are needed to minimize the dynamic loads while maximizing the power generated. It must as well be considered that the large vortical structures shed downstream (wakes), add small-scale turbulence and shear to atmospheric scales that requires fast local actuation, then they drastically affect the performance of the downstream turbines in offshore/onshore wind farms [3,4].
Perhaps the main limitation of nowadays wind turbine control, resides in the poor knowledge of the boundary layer performance and its associated dynamics along the blade, which largely depends on the wind turbine operating conditions. This limitation prevents any sensible local active/passive actuation and control.
Conventional active flow control techniques on wind turbine blades have been the focus of research for the past 20+ years [5], with passive devices and circulation control types based on conventional mechanical systems (active flaps) or fluidic control types based on boundary layer control devices. One mature technology to mitigate the outboard blade load fluctuations consists of actively controlled flaps located at the blade trailing edge, with recent prototypes advancing to high levels of technology readiness with full-scale validation [6].
The proposed Special Issue aims to explore the novel arising technologies considered in Active Flow Control applications on Wind Turbines, which reside in measuring in real time the boundary layer status along the blade span and modifying its performance using optimized novel hybrid active/passive actuators placed along the span with the corresponding hierarchical control systems. A new level of Wind Turbine Monitoring is therefore needed to detect in real time the boundary layer dynamics along the blade as well as the Wind Turbine overall performance. Such technologies are aimed to create a future generation of Wind Turbines, which will be active living devices, capable of sensing and reacting to the different wind and atmospheric dynamic conditions.
1.- Novel Active and hybrid Active/Passive flow control technologies to be employed in future wind turbine designs.
2.- Monitoring techniques of flow control performance and Wind Turbines overall performance.
3.- Optimization Methodologies employed on Wind Turbines control and or flow control.
4.- Novel sensors for detecting the boundary layer dynamics along the blade span.
5.- State of the art of actuators desing to be employed in Active/Passive flow control applications.
6.- Hierarchical Control, novel trends.
7.- High performace CFD simulations and experimental measurements to analyze vortex generation and downstream vortex shedding as a function of inflow turbulence length scale and turbulence intensity.
8.- Fluid Structure interaction.
References.
[1] Veers et al. Wind Energy Science. 2023, 8:1071-1131. doi: 10.5194/wes-8-1071-2023
[2] Sun et al. Renewable Energy 238, 2025 doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2024.121945
[3] Hodgson et et al. Renewable Energy 238, 2025, doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2024.121804
[4] Porté-Agel et al. Boundary-layer meteorology 174.1, 2020, doi.org/10.1007/s10546-019-00473-0
[5] Barlas and van Kuik. Progress in Aerospace Sciences. 2010, 46(1):1-27. doi: 10.1016/j.paerosci.2009.08.002
[6] Gomez et al. Wind Energy Science. 2021, 6(1):33-43. doi: 10.5194/wes-6-33-2021
Contact:
tkba@dtu.dk
josep.m.bergada@upc.edu
MS02
Mechanical Metamaterials for Advanced Structural Design and Manufacturing
Andrea Spaggiari, Department of Sciences and Method for Engineering,
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Luke Mizzi, Department of Sciences and Method for Engineering,
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
> Click Here to read MS02 description
Description: Mechanical metamaterials are opening new frontiers in manufacturing, structural optimization, and materials design. This Special Session / Mini-Symposium will highlight recent innovations in the design, modeling, fabrication, and experimental testing of these emerging materials, with a particular focus on future engineering applications.
The rapid development and widespread adoption of additive manufacturing technologies have significantly accelerated the realization of architected material systems. These structures can integrate multiple functions within a single component while achieving lightweight configurations and unconventional mechanical or physical responses, such as auxetic behavior, tailored stiffness, enhanced energy absorption, and negative thermal expansion.
By exploiting geometry-driven properties, mechanical metamaterials can outperform conventional materials and structures, enabling innovative solutions to a wide range of engineering challenges. Potential applications include integrated actuation, impact and energy absorption, structural optimization, and weight reduction in advanced engineering systems, including aerospace and biomedical applications.
Bringing together leading experts and researchers, this Special Session / Mini-Symposium will focus on key topics including metamaterial design strategies, computational modeling, experimental characterization, manufacturing approaches, and the application of mechanical metamaterials in advanced structural systems.
Contact: andrea.spaggiari@unimore.it
Plenary Talks (To be announced)
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University of Lisbon
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