Opis
It has been already recognized in the XXth century that many structural materials possess either natural or artificially created inhomogeneities which must be accounted for in continuous models. These are, for instance, polycrystals, composite materials, dense structures such as grids, porous and granular materials and many others. Mathematical methods developed for the description of such materials were designed for transition from microstructural properties to effective macroscopic parameters describing their behaviour. Three main ways have been extensively discussed: volume averaging, homogenization and numerical approximations. In spite of a very extensive research (for a very competent review see, for example, the book by Greame W. Milton, The Theory of Composites, Cambridge University Press, 2004). many important issues are not even alluded. It is the main aim of the series of conferences “Mechanics of Inhomogeneous Media” held in Łagów (Poland) to present the progress in this field. As a result of the first conference in this series the book “Selected Topics in the Mechanics of Inhomogeneous Media” edited by Czesław Woźniak, Romuald Świtka and Mieczysław Kuczma was published in 2006 by the University of Zielona Góra.
In 2008 the second conference of this series was held and the present book contains articles which were presented at this conference. It is a multi-author work of 20 individual Chapters written by 33 scientists.
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