IAS PGR Workshop - Dispersion without Higher Gradients

IAS Residential Fellow Professor Giuseppe Saccomandi delivers a workshop for Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs), fully titled 'Dispersion without Higher Gradients: A Thermodynamically Consistent Theory within Simple Materials'.

Real materials—from metals to amorphous polymers and biological soft tissues—are characterised by intrinsic length scales that decisively influence their mechanical behaviour across different observation scales. While classical elasticity theory predicts wave propagation without dispersion in infinite bodies, real materials exhibit dispersive effects that cannot be fully captured by boundary conditions alone.

This workshop explores a fundamental question: How can we incorporate intrinsic material dispersion while remaining within the rigorous framework of simple materials?

Traditionally, dispersive effects have been addressed through enriched theories involving higher-order deformation gradients, explicit microstructures, or nonlocal formulations—all of which lie outside Noll's classical definition of simple materials. However, a compelling alternative was proposed by Rubin, Rosenau, and Gottlieb (1995): modify the inertial structure rather than introduce higher spatial gradients.

Arrivals from 1pm for a 2pm start.