Mesh-Free and Finite Element-Based Methods for Structural Mechanics Applications

Authors of the present Special Issue are gratefully acknowledged for writing papers of very high standard. Moreover, the reviewers are also acknowledged for providing punctual and detailed reviews that improved the original manuscripts. Finally, the Guest Editor would like to thank Professors Oliver Schütze and Gianluigi Rozza (Editors-in-Chief of the MCA) for the opportunity to publish this Special Issue and Everett Zhu for accurately managing the editorial process. The present Special Issue aimed to present relevant and innovative research works in the field of numerical analysis. The problem of solving complex engineering problems has been always a major topic in all industrial fields, such as aerospace, civil and mechanical engineering. The use of numerical methods increased exponentially in the last few years due to modern computers in the field of structural mechanics. Moreover, a wide-range of numerical methods has been presented in the literature for solving such problems. Structural mechanics problems are dealt with by using partial differential systems of equations that might be solved by using the two main classes of methods: Domain-decomposition methods, or the so-called finite element methods, and mesh-free methods where no decomposition is carried out. Both methodologies discretize a partial differential system into a set of algebraic equations that can be easily solved by computer implementation. The aim of the present Special Issue was to present a collection of recent works on these themes and a comparison of the novel advancements of both worlds in structural mechanics applications. This Special Issue collects 10 (ten) contributions from several countries and topics all within the field of numerical analysis. This Special Issue is devoted to scientists, mathematicians and engineers who are investigating recent developments in analysis and state-of-the-art techniques on mathematical applications in numerical analysis.