University of Oxford hosts first European Mechanics of Materials Conference since 2018

The European Mechanics of Materials Conference (EMMC) has taken place in cities across Europe for the past 25 years – although sadly EMMC17, due to be held in Madrid in 2020, had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.

Oxford was selected to host the prestigious event in 2022, and for many attendees it was the first in person event they had attended for some time (and the first for many PhD candidates). EMMC gathered researchers sharing a common interest in the field of mechanics of materials, working in a variety of application domains in the wider field of mechanics of materials. Contributions providing a better understanding of complex phenomena associated to mechanical response of materials at all scales, from atomistic to structural, were presented. The scope of the conference covered experimental, analytical and computational modelling approaches.

Three plenaries provided expert insight into different areas of the field, with Professor Chiara Daraio (CalTech) talking on “Irregular Architected Materials with Programmable Properties”, Professor Vicky Nguyen (The Johns Hopkins University) on “Viscoelastic Behavior of Liquid Crystal Elastomers” and Professor Samuel Forest (MINES Paristech PSL University), “Slip vs kink bands in metallic single and polycrystals and their impact on fatigue crack initiation and propagation”.

Because of ongoing uncertainty over social distancing and travel restrictions, the organising Committee (Professors Alan Cocks, Laurence Brassart and Antoine Jerusalem) devised a hybrid format, with both attendees and presenters able to take part either in person or virtually.

The event was one of the largest ever in this series, with over 700 abstract submissions, 530 presentations and 600 attendees, of which 450 were in person.

The conference hosted 18 symposia in the historic Examination Schools and beautiful Queen’s College in central Oxford. In-person attendees were also able to explore Oxford at a number of social events, with a drink reception at Oxford’s renowned Ashmolean Museum and conference banquets at Keble College and Lady Margaret Hall.

Two prizes were awarded as part of the conference. Candidates for the EuroMech best student presentation award spoke in each of the 18 symposia. The winner was Filippo Masi for the paper entitled: Multiscale modeling of inelastic microstructured materials with Thermodynamics-based Artificial Neural Networks (TANN). Candidates for the poster prize displayed their poster at the conference and submitted a two-minute video presentation. The winner selected by the conference chairs was Vincent Martin, for the poster entitled: 316 L Steel MIM-like 3D Printing.