
Head of the chair Prof. Daniel Balzani is unanimously elected Dean of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering by the Faculty Council. He will take up his post on October 1, 2025.

We are delighted to share that Mehran Motevalli has successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Numerical Modeling of the Nonlinear, Anisotropic, Saturated Material Behavior in Tensile Membrane Structures”.

The LKM was represented at this year's GACM with four presentations. Hendrik Dorn presented the latest results on the influence of microstructure variability on macroscopic quantities. Sergey Kozinov presented the interaction between configuration forces and defects in flexoelectric materials. Thuc Pham Phu spoke about the influence of strain gradients on local polarization in piezoelectric materials. Dennis Ogiermann presented a method for validating mechanical heart simulations.

At the 10th MEC, Dennis Ogiermann was abstract-selected to present his recent work on studying the influence of Piezo1 ion channels on the mechano-chemical feedback in the heart using computational methods.

The Chair of Continuum Mechanics was represented at this year's FerriteCon with three presentations on the topics of adaptive mesh refinement, multigrid methods, and mesh sorting.

In the context of the DFG project “Computational modeling and simulation of combined seismo- and electrocardiograms as basis for novel diagnostic tools” Dennis Ogiermann and Daniel Balzani visited the cooperation partners of the project Prof. Luigi Perotti and Prof. Hanson Mansy from the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando from June 6 to June 8, 2025. Dennis Ogiermann stayed for another week to work on joint implementations.

From June 1 to June 5, 2025, Dennis Ogiermann and Daniel Balzani participated in the FIMH conference (Functional Imaging and Modeling of the Heart) in Dallas and presented the latest results on the validation of simulations of the electromechanics of the heart.

The kickoff meeting for the collaborative research centre 1683 "Interaction Methods for the Modular Reuse of Existing Load-Bearing Structures" took place on 22nd and 23rd of may 2025 at the convention centre of the RUB. The chair of continuum mechanics participates in the CRC by means of the subprojects B01 und B03.

The sub-project proposals for the inaugural funding period of the DFG Priority Program 2489 were presented to the panel of reviewers in Bochum. As a member of the program committee, Daniel Balzani hosted the event, collaborating with the DFG. The event commenced with a presentation by program spokesperson Markus Kästner (TU Dresden), who elucidated the content and conceptual framework of the SPP.