German Revival in Continuum Mechanics After WWII

Abstract

Contrary to France, Germany is not a centralized country, having lastly taken a federal form but having in the past been made of a variety of smaller states. A consequence of this mosaiclike structure is the multiplicity of scientific and engineering strongholds in friendly competition. This, together with the traditional strength of the German mechanical industry and the success of German scientific giants in the Nineteenth century, explains the status of continuum mechanics in Germany in the second half of the Twentieth century when a revival was necessary after World War II. Before WWII, the strength of the German mechanical community had materialized in a well-organized scientific society (GAMM) and journal (ZAMM) and influential textbooks (Föppl, Hamel). After WWII, the network of celebrated Technical universities was successfully revived and extended, while the Journal known as Ingenieur Archiv won prominence. The chapter exposes the role played by various centres (Munich, Bochum, Hannover, and also Berlin, Darmstadt, Aachen, etc) with the corresponding strong personality of the local leaders. Rather typical interests of German institutions are reported involving problems of plasticity, generalized continuum mechanics, fracture mechanics, and more recently the continuum thermodynamics of complex materials and computational mechanics. A successful blend of modern continuum mechanics and numerical techniques justified in a rigorous mathematical frame has thus emerged.