What is Experimental Mechanics

The study of the mechanical behavior of an item subjected to a load or excitation using experiments is known as experimental mechanics. This branch of engineering mechanics is used to address engineering problems using measurements. It connects theoretical and practical mechanics.

It is the most established and significant area of solid and fluid mechanics, and its importance is only increasing.

Without the integration of numerous disciplines, including general physics, optics, electronics, numerical mathematics, and computer science, experimental mechanics cannot be used.

Advanced engineering challenges are solved with tremendous effort, creative engineering knowledge, and experimental techniques with broad practical applications. When doing so, we consider that everything is set up correctly and organized to help experimental engineers do experiments more quickly.

If the issue wasn't tackled in this way, the knowledge that was acquired would be useless and unusable. Development engineers work closely and cooperatively with experimental engineers in a variety of research and development areas where practical problems are solved with the aid of experimental mechanics.

This ensures that the sharing of scientific and technical knowledge and experience is done quickly and effectively for both parties.

In addition to performing mechanical quantity measurements, experimental mechanics entails:

Creating experiments

Engineering control model development and preliminary evaluation of the research system, that is, measurement to estimate the measured values

• the creation of measurement techniques and procedures
• Measurement system design, construction, and technical advancement
• after data capture, data processing
• Using measurement data, the researched system is mathematically formulated and analyzed.
• A test object could be a building or structure, a mechanical system, a phenomenon, a difficulty, or a sample substance.

The following mechanical parameters can be measured and are frequently linked to experimental mechanics: accelerations, velocities, displacements, angles, and strains, which can be used to calculate stresses or loads (forces, torques).

Any appearance relevant to a given object can be measured or recorded using photography or video equipment in addition to standard quantities, making it easier to establish the real condition using experimental techniques. It will be simpler to mathematically characterize the phenomenon if its real condition is understood.

Uses for experimental mechanics include:

• solving engineering issues when numerical methods can't produce trustworthy solutions
• Verification of boundary conditions and constitutive parameters in analytical and numerical engineering models
• Establishing the actual forces, displacements, strains, and stresses acting on an object...
• measurement of the system's actual dynamic behavior under service circumstances - vibrations
• data generation for engineering models

More thorough experimental support is required to motivate, calibrate, and validate these models as theoretical and computational approaches to describe material behaviors become ever more advanced.

Our goal at the Division of Solid Mechanics is to understand material properties and mechanics from the simplest building blocks up, i.e., how micro-/nano-structures and mechanisms control macroscopic responses.

To this end, we have developed advanced experimental mechanics approaches to investigate material behavior under various types of loads (mechanical, thermal, hydraulic, hygric, magnetic, electric, electrochemical, etc.). To do this, it is necessary to create tools and tool combinations that enable probing at the nano- and micro-scales while still taking into account relevant sample sizes, performing measurements at the macro-scale, and comprehending the function and evolution of heterogeneity.

All this work is done to increase our understanding of material behavior and create more precise modelling techniques; in other words, we work hard to stay in close contact with the group's ongoing theoretical and numerical breakthroughs.

Our experimental mechanics research includes a heavy emphasis on "full-field" measurements, such as x-ray/neutron tomography and Digital Image/Volume Correlation (DIC/DVC).

To comprehend the causes of the micro, meso, and macro-scale behaviors, we also use x-ray and neutron scattering methods (SAXS, WAXS, diffraction, 3DXRD, DCT) to examine nano-scale structures and mechanisms. We frequently combine several strategies to be able to connect the systems across scales.

Description:

The behaviour of numerous materials, including polymers, ceramics, metals, composites, and alloys, is experimentally characterized across time and length scales using current testing equipment. TAMG is particularly interested in:

Bulk mechanical behaviour should be coupled with microstructural changes. Realistic lifespan predictions can be made through the characterization and quantification of microstructures in conjunction with focused experimental testing. This combination enables correlations that can be used to explain basic material behaviour, such as small-scale plasticity.

Feed the computer model. Targeted mechanical testing is used to generate datasets suitable for building/calibrating computer models with parametrically changed extrinsic (geometry and loading rates) and intrinsic (e.g., material chemistry and microstructure) elements.