Welcome to the Group on Contact and Interfacial Mechanics at the Institute of Continuum Mechanics at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Our research is focused on comprehending the mechanics associated with the nonlinear behavior of interfaces. Interfaces are existent in all systems and critical to their behavior. For ex: Walking is a result of frictional interaction between the feet & ground; Head injuries involve propagation of shock waves ffrom the skull to the brain via the fluid interface made of CerebroSpinal Fluid; Lubrication involves contact of two surfaces across a thin film interfaces; Building foundations involve interaction between the granular materials and the foundation piles; interfacial sliding across dislocation leading to plasticity etc.

Friction, Contact and Interfacial mechanics play a primary role in all material and structural behavior. Our pursuit is to develop a physics-based, mathematically-rigorous theory using computational & numerical techniques and validated by experiments. Further on, we exploit the understanding to design structures that can exploit the nonlinearities for enhanced and tunable properties. More detailed information on our ongoing research is available in our Research section.