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The changing world of mechanics: a key to the future

Mechanics, the science of movement and balance, is constantly renewing itself by innovating and pushing the boundaries of knowledge, while adapting to today’s challenges.

Vortex zone in a soap bubble subjected to temperature variation

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Originally the science of movement and balance, mechanics is now as concerned with the behaviour of new materials as it is with in the turbulent flows of fluids, acoustic waves, robots, combustion, the living world, health, additive manufacturing (3D printing) and other innovative processes. It is in synergy with physics, applied mathematics, information, environmental and life sciences. It maintains ongoing relationships with the industry.

The concepts and tools it puts in place, coupled with digital advances, allow ever more complex engineering problems to be solved while integrating artificial intelligence methods and advances in knowledge of the infinitely small. Major technological advances that have become daily realities underlie many of the research advances in this area. Examples include the design of new composite materials to lighten aircraft and reduce their fuel consumption or the progress made in surgical robotics, which boosts the surgeon's dexterity and thus allows increasingly meticulous operations.

Mechanical sciences are present in virtually every aspect of modern life today. They are connected to the most urgent societal challenges: energy, environment, climate, health or mobility.

Keywords: mechanics, fluid mechanics, mechanics of materials and structures, biomechanics, modelling, acoustics, structural dynamics

At the "Ondes et Matière ' " laboratory in Aquitaine, soap bubbles have become a study subject for detecting instability and turbulence. The aim is to simulate flux and flows to create faithful models of vortexes comparable to natural phenomena such as cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons.

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In a Grenoble laboratory, researchers have access to a unique instrument: the largest turntable in the world, 14 meters in diameter. They benefit from a remarkable instrument for modeling experimentally the effect of the Coriolis Force on atmospheric and ocean flow, which are major phenomena on our planet.

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Portrait d'Antoine Venaille, lauréat de la Médaille de Bronze 2020 du CNRS, chercheur en physique, spécialisé en dynamique des fluides au Laboratoire de physique à l'ENS de Lyon1 au sein de l'équipe Physique statistique, hydrodynamique, non-linéarités.

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Whether we think they intend to annihilate us, replace us in factories or become our slaves (or even our friends!), robots have fuelled our fantasies for centuries... Especially when they look like us. Except that actually we don't come across many of them other than in fiction. So in this episode of #VaSavoir we asked what is ultimately the point of trying to create humanoid robots? And scientifically, what is really hidden behind this seemingly Promethean desire? To gain a better…

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