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Applied Mechanics
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2026 Early Career Scientists' Contributions to Applied Mechanics (ECS 2026)
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2026 Early Career Scientists' Contributions to Applied Mechanics (ECS 2026)

A special issue of Applied Mechanics (ISSN 2673-3161).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 2627

Editor

Prof. Dr. Magd Abdel Wahab

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory Soete, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Ghent University, Technologiepark Zwijnaarde 903, B-9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium
Interests: computational mechanics; fracture mechanics; damage mechanics; finite element analysis; fatigue of materials; fretting fatigue; fretting wear; durability; dynamics and vibration of structures
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue entitled "2026 Early Career Scientists' Contributions to Applied Mechanics (ECS 2026)" follows the successful 3rd edition (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applmech/special_issues/Q0NWDX91R9). This Special Issue of Applied Mechanics aims to provide an opportunity for early career scientists to share their valuable results with the scientific community. Manuscripts on all topics related to applied mechanics can be submitted. Subjects that can be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Mechanics of solids;
  • Static and dynamic of structures;
  • Materials engineering;
  • Mathematical modelling of structures and solids;
  • Computer methods in engineering;
  • Applications in civil engineering structures;
  • Mechanical and aerospace structures;
  • Fluid mechanics;
  • Thermodynamics of materials;
  • Biomechanics.

This Special Issue accepts manuscripts in the form of original research articles or reviews where the first author is an ECS (a student, PhD candidate, or post-doctoral researcher who received their PhD within the past 5 years).

We will provide additional discounts on the APC (article processing charge) upon request, as well as additional guidance on how to address reviewers’ comments, and the publication process will be as transparent and efficient as possible. Submissions will be assessed by at least two referees, as rigorously as any other paper submitted to Applied Mechanics.

Prof. Dr. Magd Abdel Wahab
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Mechanics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • mechanics of materials
  • solid and structural mechanics
  • interface mechanics
  • marine engineering
  • civil engineering
  • mechanical and aerospace engineering
  • computational mechanics
  • stress analysis
  • fluid mechanics
  • vibration analysis
  • thermodynamics analysis
  • biomechanics

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

32 pages, 6272 KB  
Article
Robust Active Disturbance Rejection Fractional-Order Control for Regenerative Chatter Suppression in Milling
by Sami Soufi, Amina Mseddi, Riadh Chaari, Mohamed Haddar and Imed Bouzida
Appl. Mech. 2026, 7(2), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/applmech7020050 - 8 Jun 2026
Viewed by 199
Abstract
End milling productivity is reduced by regenerative chatter. In this paper, a hybrid Fractional-Order PID with Active Disturbance Rejection Control (ADRC-FOPID) is proposed to suppress chatter in half-immersion milling. A Timoshenko cantilever flexible workpiece is modeled together with a delay-dependent regenerative cutting-force model. [...] Read more.
End milling productivity is reduced by regenerative chatter. In this paper, a hybrid Fractional-Order PID with Active Disturbance Rejection Control (ADRC-FOPID) is proposed to suppress chatter in half-immersion milling. A Timoshenko cantilever flexible workpiece is modeled together with a delay-dependent regenerative cutting-force model. The lumped disturbance is canceled on-line by an Extended State Observer, and the five FOPID gains are tuned off-line using Particle Swarm Optimization with a ±27 N actuator-saturation constraint. The RMS tip displacement is reduced by 68.5% by the ADRC-FOPID controller. Moreover, it increases the minimum and maximum stable depth of cut from 1.00 mm to 2.67 mm and from 23.17 mm to 37.67 mm, respectively. A robustness analysis over plant uncertainties and the operating window, with 38 points, results in a low mean RMS of 4.2 µm. Compared with classical controllers and robust controllers such as PID, LQR, H∞, and μ-synthesis, ADRC-FOPID achieves the highest critical limiting depth (7.58 mm) and peak stable depth (49.52 mm) on the same benchmark. Thus, the proposed strategy is an effective, robust candidate strategy for chatter suppression in milling. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 2026 Early Career Scientists' Contributions to Applied Mechanics (ECS 2026))
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23 pages, 8823 KB  
Article
External RC Knee Joints Reinforced with a Rebar Truss System Under Closing Moments
by Ahmed Yaseen Al-Tuhami, Ahmed Ghallab and Soliman Ali El-din
Appl. Mech. 2026, 7(2), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/applmech7020049 - 7 Jun 2026
Viewed by 166
Abstract
Achieving adequate load capacity and ensuring ductile behavior are crucial for reinforced-concrete knee joints to prevent a complete structural collapse if an adjacent member fails. The reinforcement detailing plays a critical role in achieving these factors. In this study, the performance of a [...] Read more.
Achieving adequate load capacity and ensuring ductile behavior are crucial for reinforced-concrete knee joints to prevent a complete structural collapse if an adjacent member fails. The reinforcement detailing plays a critical role in achieving these factors. In this study, the performance of a knee joint under closing moments was analyzed using innovative truss-shaped reinforcement and simplified mechanical joints, in comparison to traditional reinforcement detailing, through four large-scale specimens. The findings showed that incorporating a truss-shaped reinforcement system with the suggested detailing effectively redistributed stresses in the knee-joint area and decreased stress concentration at the bent-bar zone, thus helping to prevent premature joint failure when compared to conventional specimens. Overall, the proposed system shifted the failure mode towards a highly ductile response. Furthermore, the suggested specimen experienced significant increases in both the yield load and the ultimate load, with the yield-load boost ranging from around 29.5% to 70.5%, and the ultimate-load increase ranging from 20% to 81%. Additionally, the proposed reinforcement system exhibited notably higher displacement capacity, with increases ranging from 88% to 347%. The proposed specimen also showed a considerable enhancement in displacement ductility, with an increase of roughly 160% to 382% relative to traditional specimens. The results matched well with the created analytical models confirming the effectiveness of the proposed load-transfer system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 2026 Early Career Scientists' Contributions to Applied Mechanics (ECS 2026))
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26 pages, 4139 KB  
Article
Influence of Turbulence Modeling on CFD-Based Prediction of Vehicle Hydroplaning Speed
by Thathsarani D. H. Herath Mudiyanselage, Manjriker Gunaratne and Andrés E. Tejada-Martínez
Appl. Mech. 2026, 7(2), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/applmech7020032 - 11 Apr 2026
Viewed by 750
Abstract
Most computational studies of vehicle hydroplaning have emphasized structural realism through fluid–structure interaction, tire deformation, tread geometry, and pavement surface characterization. By contrast, the hydrodynamics governing the flow in the tire vicinity, particularly the role of turbulence, have received comparatively limited attention. In [...] Read more.
Most computational studies of vehicle hydroplaning have emphasized structural realism through fluid–structure interaction, tire deformation, tread geometry, and pavement surface characterization. By contrast, the hydrodynamics governing the flow in the tire vicinity, particularly the role of turbulence, have received comparatively limited attention. In a significant number of studies, the flow has been treated as laminar despite turbulent flow conditions, while in a few other studies turbulence modeling has been adopted without an explicit assessment of its impact on hydroplaning predictions. In this study, we present a simplified three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model designed to isolate the flow regimes governing hydroplaning and to quantify the mean effect of the turbulence modeling on the predicted hydroplaning speed. Using a finite-volume formulation with a volume-of-fluid representation of the air–water interface, the flow around and beneath a smooth 0.7 m-diameter tire sliding in locked-wheel mode over a flooded, nominally smooth pavement is simulated. The tire is represented as a rigid body with an idealized rectangular bottom patch whose area is determined from the tire load and inflation pressure, avoiding the need to prescribe a measured or assumed deformed footprint. Steady-state hydroplaning is modeled for a uniform upstream water film thickness of 7.62 mm with a 0.5 mm gap between the tire and the pavement, over tire inflation pressures ranging from approximately 100 to 300 kPa, and predictions are verified against the empirical NASA hydroplaning equation. For these conditions, simulations without turbulence closure exhibit a consistent, systematic underprediction of the hydroplaning speed of approximately 13.5% relative to the NASA relation. Incorporating turbulence effects through Reynolds-averaged closures substantially reduces this bias, with average deviations of about 6% for the realizable k–ε model and 2.4% for the shear stress transport (SST) k–ω model. An analysis of the results indicates that hydrodynamic lift is dominated by pressure buildup associated with stagnation at the lower leading edge of the tire, with a significant contribution from shear-dominated flow in the thin under-tire gap, and that turbulence acts to moderate the integrated lift from these pressure fields. These results demonstrate that explicitly accounting for turbulence in the tire vicinity is essential for reproducing empirical hydroplaning trends and for avoiding systematic bias in CFD-based hydroplaning predictions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 2026 Early Career Scientists' Contributions to Applied Mechanics (ECS 2026))
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22 pages, 3599 KB  
Article
Linear and Nonlinear Analysis of a Curved Timoshenko Beam Using Geometrically Exact Formulation
by Qamar Maqbool, Rashid Naseer and Imran Akhtar
Appl. Mech. 2026, 7(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/applmech7020030 - 6 Apr 2026
Viewed by 904
Abstract
This study investigates the mechanisms of nonlinear modal interactions in a circularly curved cantilever beam, utilizing the geometrically exact Timoshenko beam formulation. The governing equations take into account shear deformation, rotary inertia, and the geometric nonlinearities associated with significant deflections. A Chebyshev pseudospectral [...] Read more.
This study investigates the mechanisms of nonlinear modal interactions in a circularly curved cantilever beam, utilizing the geometrically exact Timoshenko beam formulation. The governing equations take into account shear deformation, rotary inertia, and the geometric nonlinearities associated with significant deflections. A Chebyshev pseudospectral scheme is employed to achieve highly accurate linear eigenvalues, which are subsequently used in a nonlinear modal projection to develop a reduced-order model. Explicit expressions for the quadratic and cubic modal coupling coefficients are derived. The Harmonic Balance Method is then applied to explore internal resonance phenomena, frequency modulation behavior, and the transfer of energy between non-commensurate lateral and normal vibration modes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 2026 Early Career Scientists' Contributions to Applied Mechanics (ECS 2026))
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