Abstract: Magnesium alloys, owing to their high specific strength and stiffness, offer significant potential for lightweight structural applications. However, corrosion fatigue remains a critical challenge that limits their reliable use in safety-critical load-bearing components. A comprehensive understanding of corrosion fatigue behavior, together with the development of robust life prediction models and effective protection strategies, is therefore essential to promote their broader engineering application. In this context, the present paper reviews the research progress on the macroscopic behavior, microscopic mechanisms, and life prediction of corrosion fatigue in magnesium alloys. First, it summarizes the effects of intrinsic factors of magnesium alloys, corrosive media, and loading conditions on their macroscopic evolution characteristics of corrosion fatigue. Second, the underlying damage mechanisms are discussed, with particular emphasis on insights gained from in situ and ex situ characterization techniques, as well as commonly employed numerical simulation approaches. Third, the current state of corrosion-fatigue life prediction models is systematically evaluated. Finally, the main findings are summarized, and key challenges and future research directions are highlighted.
Kang G Z, Ao N, Fu Z H, Li H, KAN Q H. Research progress on corrosion fatigue behavior and life prediction of magnesium alloys. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-26-008.
Abstract: Rarefied gas transport is prevalent in critical fields such as aerospace, vacuum technology, micro- and nano-systems, and inertial confinement fusion. Particularly in extreme processes like spacecraft atmospheric reentry and near-space hypersonic flight, the flow exhibits prominent multiscale characteristics, accompanied by complex multiphysics coupling effects including molecular internal energy excitation, chemical reactions, and radiation. These features significantly increase the complexity of kinetic modeling, leading to severe computational bottlenecks for conventional numerical methods and restricting the accuracy and efficiency of large-scale engineering simulations. To address these challenges, this paper systematically introduces the general synthetic iterative scheme (GSIS), a multiscale numerical method characterized by both fast-convergence and asymptotic-preserving properties. The core of this method lies in the construction of macroscopic synthetic equations that are physically consistent with the kinetic equations. By leveraging the superior information propagation efficiency of parabolic macroscopic systems to guide the evolution of hyperbolic kinetic equations, GSIS breaks the inherent bottleneck where computational grids and time steps are constrained by the molecular collision scales, enabling unified and efficient simulation across all flow regimes. Theoretical analysis and numerical validation demonstrate that GSIS not only rigorously recovers the macroscopic fluid dynamics description in the continuum limit, but also exhibits exceptional iterative convergence efficiency across the entire range of Knudsen numbers. Furthermore, the GSIS framework possesses remarkable model compatibility and algorithmic extensibility. Through a variety of typical benchmarks, this paper highlights its high-precision and high-efficiency performance in problems involving polyatomic gases, high-temperature radiation, multi-component mixtures, and unsteady complex flows. Concurrently, the GSIS mechanism can be deeply integrated with stochastic particle algorithms, achieving significant acceleration of the Boltzmann and Enskog equations within the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo framework. Additionally, this paper presents the recent progress of GSIS in multiscale aerodynamic shape optimization, flow stability analysis, and turbulence-rarefaction interactions, showcasing its promising applications in frontier areas such as transition and turbulence in near-space hypersonic flight. Overall, GSIS provides an essential tool for multiscale numerical simulations of rarefied gas flows, and offers strong theoretical support and practical pathways for high-reliability, high-efficiency engineering simulations and optimization.
Zeng J N, Zhang Y B, Li Q, Su W, Wu L. General synthetic iterative scheme for the simulation of rarefied gas flows. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-26-007.
Abstract: Through structural design, architected materials can achieve extraordinary properties and therefore have found broad applications across biomedical, aerospace, energy, and environmental domains. Incorporating non-periodicity into structural design helps mitigate the brittleness arising from localized failure in conventional periodic materials, leading to improved toughness, damage tolerance, and defect insensitivity. However, the added complexity imposes computational and manufacturing challenges, calling for the development of new theoretical frameworks and design methodologies. Spinodoid materials/spinodal-like materials, characterized by spinodal topology, represent a class of non-periodic architected materials, and the research paradigm established for these materials can be generalized to predict mechanical performance and guide structural design of various complex non-periodic architectures. This review focuses on spinodoid structures as a representative example, introducing their modeling principles, effective mechanical properties, design and manufacturing methods, and typical applications. We summarize the current research and propose future research directions, with the aim of charting a roadmap for non-periodic architected materials based on the advanced methods across the integrated “modeling–design–manufacturing–application" pipeline.
Zhang J, Yan Z M, Zhuang Z, Liu Z L. Spinodoid non-periodic architected materials: Mechanical performance prediction, design, and applications. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-26-001.
Abstract: Injury biomechanics primarily investigates human responses and injury outcomes based on mechanical principles. A thorough understanding of specific injury mechanisms and associated tolerance limits is essential for improving human protection. Crash test dummies, serving as anthropomorphic substitutes that replicate human biomechanical responses during impact, are widely applied in automotive safety, sports rehabilitation, forensic analysis, military protection, and aerospace engineering. In the field of automotive safety, crash test dummies constitute essential tools for injury assessment and are generally categorized into physical dummies and computational human surrogates. This paper reviews the development history of both physical and virtual dummies, with a particular focus on parametric design methodologies used in automotive crash dummy development. Moreover, the paper discusses future trends in injury assessment techniques, with the aim of contributing to the advancement of injury biomechanics and supporting technological progress in automotive safety.
Tian T F, Liu Z X, Wang L Z. Advances in automotive crash test dummies based on injury biomechanics. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-25-033.
Abstract: The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly its transformative advance in algorithm and large-scale data processing, has provided a new path for humanity to address the energy crisis. As the ultimate form of future energy, nuclear fusion has advanced from basic research to the commercialization threshold after more than 70 years of development. This paper systematically elaborates on the current development status and key challenges of global nuclear fusion research, deeply analyzes the application scenarios and practical achievements of AI technology in key fields such as nuclear fusion device control, data processing, model optimization, and risk management, discusses the transformative impact of the integration of AI and nuclear fusion on the global energy pattern, and finally looks forward to the future development direction and industrial layout of this field, providing a reference for promoting the energy revolution and scientific and technological progress.
Liang Y F. AI+ nuclear fusion: A crucial opportunity for the transformation of the global energy pattern. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-25-045.
Abstract: Energetic composites constitute a class of architected material systems whose mechanical, thermal, and safety-related properties can be tailored over a broad design space through multiscale structural design. However, their overall performance is often constrained by degradation mechanisms originating at the particle/matrix interface, including thermal mismatch, stress concentration, and interfacial debonding. These effects are further amplified under extreme service conditions, thereby undermining structural reliability and operational safety. Fundamentally, this challenge reflects a highly coupled multi-objective optimization problem involving mechanical, thermal, and safety performance. Interfacial engineering offers an effective pathway to address this challenge. By introducing functionalized coatings at the particle scale, stress transfer and heat-transport behaviors can be synergistically regulated, enabling energetic composites to access performance regimes in which mechanical robustness and thermal stability coexist. Despite rapid advances in experimental characterization, theoretical modeling, and data-driven approaches, a unified framework that systematically links interfacial architectural design with mechano–thermal synergy remains lacking. This review provides a comprehensive survey of recent progress in interfacial coating strategies for energetic composites. Emphasis is placed on coating material systems, fabrication routes, and microstructural descriptors, together with their influences on macroscopic mechanical and thermal properties. The interfacial coupling mechanisms responsible for coordinated enhancements in stiffness, strength, thermal conductivity, and thermal expansion behavior are further elucidated. On this basis, an integrated “materials–microstructure–process–characterization–model–artificial intelligence (AI)” framework is outlined to guide the rational design and scalable manufacture of multifunctional energetic composites and structural components.
Zeng X, He R Q, Guan W F, Lu Q S, Ma W B, Zhao Z Y, Lu T J. Cross-scale mechanisms of interfacial coating-enabled synergistic regulation of mechano–thermal properties in energetic composites. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-25-040.
Abstract: With the rapid advancement of high-energy laser technology, the application scenarios of laser-induced damage effects are expanding to higher-speed engineering structures. The coupling effects among high-energy lasers, high-speed airflow environments, and materials or structures become significantly stronger, thereby markedly influencing the thermal and mechanical damage behaviors of lasers and even inducing novel damage mechanisms and failure phenomena. Furthermore, issues such as thermo-mechanical coupling resulting from laser irradiation and the thermo-mechanical-impact-ablation coupling under combined loading of different laser systems further complicate the coupling behaviors of damage effects. Research on strongly coupled laser-induced thermo-mechanical damage effects addresses the latest developmental needs in related fields, involving interdisciplinary integration of optics, heat transfer, materials science, solid mechanics, and fluid mechanics. It constitutes a fundamental scientific challenge common to high-tech domains such as laser weapon effect evaluation, advanced laser manufacturing, and spacecraft protection. This paper systematically reviews recent research progress by domestic and international scholars in this field. It summarizes findings from several key aspects: novel phenomena and mechanisms of laser-induced thermo-mechanical damage under strong coupling conditions, multi-scale thermo-mechanical ablation mechanisms and models of laser-irradiated composite materials, similarity criteria for laser-induced thermo-mechanical damage under complex loads and environments, multi-field coupled numerical simulation methods, ground simulation testing techniques and in-situ multi-field measurement technologies, laser protection and reinforcement strategies, and laser-based intelligent sensing and damage assessment. Finally, based on current trends, future research directions in this field are prospected. This paper aims to provide theoretical foundations and technical references for both mechanistic studies and engineering applications of strongly coupled laser-induced thermo-mechanical damage effects.
Wang R X, Yuan W, Ma T, Qiu C, Du W Q, Zhang T Y, Wang G J, Song H W, Huang C G. Progress in Strongly Coupled Laser Thermal-Mechanical Damage Effects. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-25-042.
Abstract: Touch, as one of the five primary human senses, carries crucial information related to environmental interaction, spatial perception and physical perception. In recent years, with the rapid advancement of human–machine interaction, how to efficiently and realistically reproduce haptic information has become a central challenge in building immersive interaction systems. However, traditional haptic devices are often limited by single functionality, complex structure, bulky size and weak integration, making it difficult to simultaneously achieve multimodal haptic reproduction and wearability. To overcome these bottlenecks, mechanical metamaterials, with their ultra-compact architectures, programmable mechanical properties and multifunctional integration capabilities, have demonstrated remarkable potential in haptic devices. This paper systematically reviews the mainstream functionalities of mechanical metamaterials and the practical integrability with corresponding haptic modalities, highlighting their potentials in haptic systems through programmable Poisson’s ratios, snap-through stabilities, various stiffness, and mode switching. Furthermore, typical haptic feedback application scenarios (VR/XR entertainment, medical rehabilitation, disability assistance and human–machine collaboration) are discussed from a system-level perspective in terms of enabling pathways and integration strategies. Finally, the challenges faced by mechanical metamaterials in haptic feedback are summarized, and future prospects are envisioned in the context of intelligent structural design, micro/nanoscale manufacturing and interdisciplinary convergence.
Zhang Z, Jia C, Jiang H Q. Mechanical metamaterials empowering haptic feedback. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-25-030.
Abstract: The problem of elastoplastic crack propagation in isothermal or room temperature environments, typified by the failure of thin-walled aircraft metallic structures, poses a severe challenge to the applicability of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) and J-integral theory due to characteristics such as large-scale yielding and stable crack growth. Despite the successive proposal of various parameters—including fracture strain, crack tip opening angle/displacement (CTOA/D), essential work of fracture (EWF), and incremental crack-tip integrals—the distinct physical interpretations, ambiguous interrelationships, and questionable “transferability” of these parameters have severely hindered the development of a unified theory and its engineering applications. To address this dilemma, this paper constructs a unified theoretical framework for elastoplastic fracture, adopting the fracture process zone (FPZ) as the core perspective under the simplifying assumptions of neglecting thermal source effects and body forces. This framework not only offers a unified and self-consistent explanation for historical conundrums such as the Rice paradox but also systematically demonstrates that mainstream parameters, including incremental integrals, CTOA/D, fracture strain, and EWF, are intrinsically equivalent to the driving force on “steady FPZ”, thereby revealing the inherent unity among existing elastoplastic fracture parameters. Furthermore, by elucidating the thermodynamic significance of the power balance laws for a body with an extending crack, the framework establishes the FPZ as an independent thermodynamic system possessing “autonomy”, providing a solid theoretical foundation for the “transferability” of fracture parameters. This paper aims to systematically elaborate on the construction process, core arguments, and academic significance of this theoretical framework.
Lu L K. Mode I elastic-plastic fracture theory from the perspective of fracture process zone. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-25-041.
Abstract: With their uniquely three-dimensional, wavy whiskers, harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) exhibit exceptional underwater sensing capabilities. Studies have shown that harbor seals can detect weak vortices with flow velocities as low as 245 μm·s−1 and can track hydrodynamic trails left by targets up to 180 m away and as long as 35 s earlier. These abilities highlight the remarkable advantages of harbor seal whiskers in underwater vortex sensing and hydrodynamic trail tracking. Bio-inspired sensor designs based on harbor seal whiskers have thus become a research hotspot in biomimetic science and engineering, demonstrating promising applications in underwater target detection and recognition. This paper first reviews research progress on the morphological characteristics and geometric modeling of harbor seal whiskers, summarizing and comparing the strengths and limitations of different simplified models. It then provides an overview of advances in the hydrodynamic characteristics of biomimetic whisker models, covering wake features and vibration responses of such models in uniform and wake flows, the sensing mechanisms of harbor seal whiskers, interactions within whisker arrays, and applications of artificial intelligence methods in sensing-signal recognition. Finally, based on the shortcomings and key open questions in existing research, the paper outlines several research directions that warrant attention for advancing biomimetic science and engineering applications of harbor seal whiskers.
Zhao H H, Ji C N, Li X H, Zhang Z M, Yuan D K, Zhang J F, Chen W L. A review of morphology characteristics and sensing mechanisms of harbor seal whiskers. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-25-037.
Abstract: A dynamic multiscale topology optimization method based on equivalent static load method (ESLM) and structural genome databases (SGD) is proposed in this paper. This method transforms the complex transient dynamics optimization problem into a multi-condition static optimization problem by ESLM, and replaces the asymptotic homogenization analysis with the pre-trained graph convolutional neural networks (GCNN) model in the structural genome databases, which significantly improves the computational efficiency. In the optimization framework, the moving morphable component (MMC) method is used to describe the macro and micro structures, and the collaborative optimization design between the two scales is realized. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by a numerical example of MBB beam structure under transient load. The results show that the maximum strain energy of the optimized structure is reduced by about 20.80%, the average strain energy is reduced by 51.44%, and the maximum displacement amplitude of the load point is reduced by 72.31%. It shows the superior performance and engineering application potential of this method in multi-scale structural topology optimization and impact resistance design under dynamic conditions.
Lin X J, Xu Z A, Guo T T, Bian H W, Guo X, Du Z L. Dynamic multiscale topology optimization based on equivalent static load method and structural genome databases. AdvancesinMechanics, in press. doi: 10.6052/1000-0992-26-002.
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