Keywords

1 Introduction

The Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (AIMETA) was founded in December 1965, with a notarial deed (Appendix 1), by eight renowned Italian scientists (Appendix 2, Table 1) from Schools of Engineering, active in different areas of mechanics. According to its Statute, AIMETA was established: “(i) to promote the development of theoretical and applied mechanics, through the coordination of research efforts and the organization of national congresses and meetings; (ii) to establish relations with similar associations abroad, and with IUTAM in particular; and (iii) to make known the results of Italian research in Italy and abroad, through the publication of a journal in English. The distinguishing features of the new Association were its interdisciplinary approach and the priority accorded to international relations” [1].

At that time, I was at the beginning of my second year of studies at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Rome, tackling my first challenging problems in Rational Mechanics. The first AIMETA National Congress I certainly attended was the 5th one, Palermo 1980. Thus, my knowledge of the first decade of AIMETA and beyond is extremely vague, and basically consists of the names (and some faces) of a few important and respected professors of solid and structural mechanics whom I likely encountered elsewhere. Since then, I attended all AIMETA congresses, with the exception of a couple of them (certainly the 20th one, Bologna 2011) due to health reasons.

Thus, I may be not the right person to cover in a comprehensive way the whole AIMETA life, as elapsed in the past 50+ years. Of course, I sincerely apologize for my lack of knowledge of its first glorious decade of activity, and for the ensuing, possibly wrong and incomplete, account of the scientific research conducted in that time interval that I will give in the sequel. However, although missing a huge number of important aspects, I have been living the AIMETA time for about forty years, with variable commitments, but always with dedication, with a feeling of belonging, and with some emotional involvement, too. This is certainly one reason for having been asked to edit this book and write this introductory chapter.

Another reason is likely connected with the circumstance that, over this long time period, I have been active in the area of solids and structural mechanics, thus encompassing two (out of the five) areas of mechanical sciences—the other three being general mechanics, fluid mechanics, and mechanics of machines—into which AIMETA activities are articulated. A subdivision that also reflects, to a certain extent, the organization of engineering studies in Italian universities at an intermediate disciplinary level. In this respect, it is also worth noting that, in the last thirty years or more, the presence of research topics from mechanics of solids and structures, with the involved scientists, has been largely predominant within AIMETA, as discussed forward.

Indeed, starting with the 80s, I have still a relatively good, though variable, memory of Italian research schools in solid and structural mechanics, along with the scientific topics to which they more meaningfully contributed and the involved senior and younger scientists. But I have a definitely poor knowledge of what was going on, along the same lines, in the other three areas.

Thus, on my side, notwithstanding some attempts to also grasp at least a few basic aspects of what was occurring in those companion areas, mostly in more recent times, this is a further meaningful drawback of low acquaintance that strongly limits the appropriateness and significance of what I will be dealing with in the following.

As a result, this survey on the evolution of theoretical and applied mechanics in Italy, as observed through the AIMETA perspective, should be deemed as a combination of two personal viewpoints. The first is concerned with the AIMETA activities in their entirety, as they developed over about the last fifty years. The second reflects the overall evolution of only a part (solids and structures), though important, of mechanical sciences, as perceived by a colleague who has been committed to research in this area for a long time, with a certainly serious attempt of rigorous involvement in science and a spirit of service to the academic community.

2 Up to the End of the 70s: The AIMETA Early Stage

The AIMETA was founded with the “mandate from the Italian National Research Council (CNR) to represent Italy in the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM)”, to which Italy had adhered since 1949, “reviving the ties between Italian researchers and that community, of which Levi Civita had been one of the first promoters” [1].

The AIMETA structure somehow reproduced at the national level the IUTAM organization of mechanical topics into two very large areas (Fluids and Solids), however identifying four main areas of interest (General Mechanics, Mechanics of Solids, Mechanics of Machines, and Mechanics of Fluids), likely also to better reflect the academic and scientific environments behind the eight founders. Indeed, two of them came from theoretical mechanics (Bruno Finzi and Giorgio Sestini), two from solid mechanics (Leo Finzi and Elio Giangreco), two from mechanics of machines (Giovanni Bianchi and Emilio Massa), and two from fluid mechanics (Carlo Ferrari and Giulio Supino). The AIMETA articulation into four areas lasted until the beginning of the 80s, when it was decided to consider the area of solid mechanics as internally articulated into solids and structures (the latter formally introduced as a fifth area starting with the 1986–89 Executive Council), in order to make the evolution of research topics and scientists in the background, occurred over the decade, more apparent. According to the revised Statute, the President of AIMETA (Appendix 2, Table 1) is elected by the Executive Council (Appendix 3), made up of six members elected in turn by the General Assembly of the Association for a four-year term, plus the Past-President.

Less than one year after the establishment of the Association, namely in September 1966, the first double issue of its official journal, Meccanica, written in English, was launched under the Editorship of Emilio Massa (Appendix 2, Table 2), with four issues per year being published by a national publishing house. The issue contained a foreword by the first AIMETA President, Bruno Finzi, making reference to Mechanics “in the broadest sense of the word, ….. as extending far into the neighboring realms of Thermodynamics, Electrodynamics, Atomic Physics, … thus being difficult to describe the line of demarcation between Theoretical Mechanics and Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, between Applied Mechanics, Hydraulics, Aerodynamics and Technical Physics” [2].

The main aim of promoting knowledge and information on Italian theoretical, experimental and technical research in the diverse areas of mechanical sciences at the international level was declared explicitly. Accordingly, for a relatively long time, the journal mostly hosted contributions from qualified Italian scientists, despite an international Editorial Board. The first paper by foreign scientists (Bernard Coleman and Morton Gurtin) appeared in the third issue of 1967, and papers co-authored by Italian and foreign scientists were published occasionally, although with an obviously increasing trend over the years.

Browsing through the issues of Meccanica until about the end of the 70s, one can get an idea not only of the most frequented research themes but also of the involved Italian scientists. Most of them were esteemed, and not always easily reachable, academicians and university chair holders, belonging to the generation of Italian scholars of mechanics born before the 2nd, or even the 1st World War (WW), who were protagonists of the scientific and technological reconstruction of Italy in the post-2nd WW time. Irrespective of the involved names, some general aspects lasting for about the whole 70s decade can be pointed out.

  1. 1.

    Research topics and scientists’ involvement were relatively well balanced among the four areas of AIMETA, in both qualitative terms, with regard to their national as well as international recognition, and quantitative terms, as regards the number of papers appeared in the journal.

  2. 2.

    The presence of theoretical topics and scholars from the area of General Mechanics was definitely meaningful, greatly varied, and of the highest level.

  3. 3.

    Contributions in two (Solids and Machines), out of three, applied areas of AIMETA were rather varied and articulated, because of encompassing research criteria, and ensuing topics, either more methodologically oriented or more explicitly driven by the application needs of a given technological context. This distinction refers (i) in the solid mechanics area, to contributions of ‘Scienza delle Costruzioni’Footnote 1 (solid and structural mechanics) versus those from ‘Tecnica delle Costruzioni’ (structural engineering), and (ii) in the mechanics of machines area, to contributions of ‘Meccanica Applicata alle Macchine’ (applied mechanics) versus those of ‘Costruzione di Macchine’ (machine construction). Indeed, mostly in the first part of the considered time interval, both kinds of topics were deemed to be fully consistent with AIMETA interests and activities, also due to them substantially coexisting within the academic organization of scientific disciplines in the Italian schools of engineering. The situation gradually changed over the 70s, also in connection to the newly occurred disciplinary separation of theoretical aspects of applied mechanics from the more technical ones of engineering applications. In the following years, the presence of more finalized research topics, and of communities of scientists pursuing them, within AIMETA activities decreased up to nearly disappearing, or underwent redefinitions also linked with a number of changes going on in science and technology as well as in the background society.

  4. 4.

    Contributions in the third applied area (Fluids) were encompassing topics from both aero/fluid-dynamics, on one hand, and hydraulics, on the other hand. In both fields, they were also distinguished according to being more theoretical-methodological or more technologically-oriented, the latter referring to issues of interest in aeronautics/aerospace/mechanics or in hydraulic constructions. However, the academic/disciplinary frameworks of aero/fluid-dynamics and hydraulics clearly reflected the distinction between the two worlds of industrial engineering and civil engineering they belong to, respectively. This circumstance somehow helped keeping the two sub-areas within AIMETA also in the decades to come, up to the current days, even though other scientific associations more clearly linked with the two different technological contexts have always exerted a great attraction to them.

  5. 5.

    Last, but not least, it has to be noted that, overall, assigning a contribution to a definite scientific area often reflected much more the academic collocation of the scholars in the background than an actually marked difference as to the way a certain topic was addressed in terms of methodology and/or phenomenology. This was indeed a generally valuable outcome of the meaningful permeability between neighboring scientific areas, typical of former times, this being a feature which, unfortunately, has been lost in the following decades, governed by a drive towards specialization always running the risk to entail a narrower vision of the world. Luckily, in about the last decade, interest to scientific cross-disciplinarity is meaningfully increasing, again.

Until beginning of the 70s, AIMETA put apparently all his efforts in giving visibility to its international journal. Indeed, its second important scientific initiative (Appendix 2, Table 3), the establishment of a National Congress, was postponed until 1971, when its first edition was held in Udine, hosted by the International Centre of Mechanical Sciences (CISM). Over the first decade, the congress was handled by a single Committee, including a President and a Secretary. Since the sixth edition (Genova 1982), the Organizing Committee taking care of all practical aspects of the congress was paralleled by a Scientific Committee (Appendix 4, Table 5) taking care of all research aspects, as well as by a Honorary Committee, at least in some early editions. In all congresses, a few renowned foreign or Italian Key Lecturers were invited (Appendix 4, Table 6).

The 1st National Congress hosted 75 presentations, of which 12 in General Mechanics, 27 in Solid Mechanics, 15 in Mechanics of Machines, and 21 in Mechanics of Fluids (Appendix 4, Table 7). General scientific reports and summaries of presentations were published in a Special Issue of Meccanica [3], and represent a good starting point to dwell on scientific themes of main interest in the four areas.

  • Dionigi Galletto reported on ‘Some recent results and developments in theoretical mechanics and mathematical physics’, providing a thoughtful and comprehensive overview of the most recent international advancements in mechanics of rigid bodies, continuum mechanics, mathematical theory of simple materials and mixtures of materials, plasma physics and magneto-fluid-dynamics, and relativity. The list clearly highlights the breadth of scientific interests gathered around the area of Mechanics, as per the aforementioned interpretation by Bruno Finzi.

  • Michele Capurso reported on Mechanics of Solids, grouping presentations in three main sections, namely, elasticity theory, stability theory, and plasticity theory, and providing a list of international references, too.

  • Andrea Capello reported on Mechanics of Machines, collecting presentations in a number of sectors, namely: vibrations; lubrication; fluidics; automatic control theory; mechanisms; mechanics of solids and behavior of materials; methods and means of experimental investigation; automatic design and drawing.

  • As regards Mechanics of Fluids, only summaries of presentations were reported.

The 2nd National Congress, Napoli 1974, is worth to be mentioned because of the decision of the AIMETA Council “to collect in a singular dedicated issue of its journal the papers which would fall within the fields of computational mechanics and applications of functional analysis to mechanics, …… two topics which, as also witnessed by a number of IUTAM Symposia, rank among the latest and more interesting essential new developments of mechanical sciences” [4]. The focus on computational mechanics via the large-size electronic calculators typical of the beginning of the 70s, towards which an explosion of interest had been developing in all areas of applied mechanics, is definitely to be underlined. Another issue of Meccanica [5] published the text of a round table on the stability of continuous systems, also held at the 2nd National Congress in Napoli.

Since 1974, the AIMETA National Congress was held each even year, with a sequence later shifted forward to odd years (Appendix 2, Table 3) in order to accommodate the organization in Italy of the 2nd European Solid Mechanics Conference of EUROMECH, Genova 1994.

As regards the 4th National Congress, Firenze 1978, abstracts of presentations given within the four AIMETA areas appeared in Meccanica [6] without a relevant general report. Thereafter, no more summaries of papers presented at National Congresses were ever published, giving up an editorial choice that, apparently, was swiftly realized to make no sense in an international journal.

Browsing through the two pillars of AIMETA, Meccanica issues [7] and Congress Proceedings, one can clearly observe also the substantial change of the core generation of known Italian scientists in mechanics occurred in between the 60s and the 70s, with the progressive affirmation and the scientific characterization of new research schools spreading all over the peninsula. Their prestige and role would have become even more apparent in the following decade, also in connection with a modified organization of the Italian university system in terms of formal institutions and recruitment procedures, which entailed a wider and more democratic exchange of information and knowledge also among young scientists.

3 Italian Schools of Solid and Structural Mechanics Since the Late 60s and Far Beyond

Recognized schools of solid mechanics with a core of well-identified advanced knowledge in a certain field already existed in Italy since a long time. However, looking backwards from the viewpoint of a young researcher facing at those times the nearly first steps of his scientific and academic career, they became fully apparent between the 70s and the 80s. In this respect, some main scientific fields of widespread interest for the community of solid and structural mechanicians are to be mentioned, along with the schools that obtained more meaningful achievements.

The theory of elasticity had its core center at the University of Pisa, with Piero Villaggio’s elegant and often solitary studies on a great variety of relevant topics and the capability to use it “as a chisel to create models from the complexity of reality” [8]. A though partial account of his many contributions can be found in two fundamental books. The first deals with the characterization and solution of general boundary value problem of linear elastostatics, including mean value properties and inequalities, strong formulations, energetic a priori estimates, pointwise bounds and special other topics [9]. The second offers a critical collection of various mechanical theories for modeling the behavior of structures, and is a somehow natural progression from the earlier work on the elastic solid [10]. But Villaggio also made significant contributions in many other fields, including plasticity, fracture, contact and impact, stability, optimization, masonry constructions, and history of science, with a wide culture also allowing him later to comprehensively and critically revisit decades of development and progress in solid and structural mechanics [11].

With his extraordinary capability to extract the best from students, in a really Socratic way, and despite a severe and even sometimes provocative personal attitude, Villaggio raised a first group of outstanding young scientists, who “immensely benefited from his contacts with two outstanding research groups, ….. the group of Pisan mathematicians around Guido Stampacchia and his theory of variational inequalities, …….. and the group of Clifford Truesdell and other protagonists of the revival of continuum mechanics that took place in the second half of the past century” [12]. In the years and decades to come, other brilliant scientists greatly benefited from Villaggio’s ability “to awake a person’s intellectual interest on a subject” even away from the specific one he was dealing with, also in connection with an “uncanny ability to spot promising new research trends”. And indeed, his students were always free to make their choices, several of them later following with success quite different scientific paths, yet always keeping Villaggio’s rigorous style and attitude in tackling scientific problems.

Among Villaggio’s earlier disciples, at least two are mentioned for having become worldwide known scholars in continuum mechanics, finite elasticity, and mechanics of materials and structures. Gianpietro Del Piero was a rational scholar, and a teacher with a rigorous sense of justice, active in unilateral problems, structured deformations of continua [13], linear viscoelasticity, and unified modelling of material behavior, also including, in most recent times, fracture, plasticity, damage and creation of microstructure, based on incremental energy minimization. In turn, Paolo Podio Guidugli [14], still active, is recognized as the most aristocratic intellectual in the field of rational continuum physics, where he has been working, among other, on rods, plates, and shells, phase interfaces in solids, deformable ferromagnets, carbon nanotubes and graphene, continuum and statistical thermodynamics, conceptual issues in molecular dynamics, also forming a significant number of followers.

Since about the early 60s, theory of plasticity was another major research field in structural mechanics with a national program supported by the CNR, and with Italian scientists giving meaningful contributions to both theoretical advancements and their computational implementation in engineering problems. In between the University of Firenze and the University of Roma, Giulio Ceradini fruitfully worked on limit analysis of structures as a linear programming problem (in collaboration with his authentic disciple, Carlo Gavarini), on a maximum principle in the incremental theory [15], up to the formulation of the first theorem of dynamic shake-down. His results were published in Italian journals, owed to a still restricted vision of the national, and in particular Roman, scientific environment, being summarized in an international journal only much later [16]. Yet, they paved the way to a remarkable series of results of international level, later obtained by the Italian school of plasticity involving important research groups from several other universities, also collaborating with each other.

At the Polytechnic of Milano, for a long time, Giulio Maier was extremely active on a variety of related themes, along with collaborators, suitably balancing between theoretical results and computationally oriented formulations for the elastic–plastic problem based on finite element modelling. He obtained outstanding results on the links between plasticity and mathematical programming theories [17], dynamic shakedown of hardening structures with kinematic theorem [18], incremental plastic analysis in the presence of physical instabilizing effects [19], extremum theorems for holonomic elastic–plastic problems [20], overall stability of structural systems with individual softening components, boundary elements and their symmetric Galerkin version [21, 22]. Maier established fruitful early connections with the top-level international groups of William Prager, Daniel Drucker and Paul Symonds at Brown University, Providence, but also with scholars from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Minnesota, Faculté Polytechnique de Mons, and University of Cambridge. However, along with young collaborators, he has contributed significantly also to optimum design and structural optimization, parameter identification in elastoplasticity based on mathematical programming and Kalman filter techniques, statistically loaded structures, crack-propagation analysis, cohesive crack models, and structural dynamics.

Editor of Meccanica (1982–85) and President of AIMETA (1986–89), Maier was awarded a huge number of prestigious Italian and international prizes, which highlighted his large recognition in different scientific fields. Based also on many other links, he constantly feeded excellent scholars working on a variety of themes, ranging from finite elements, heterogeneous materials, and fracture processes, up to inverse problems, structural diagnosis, and micro-electro-mechanical-systems. All of this has qualified Maier and his varied research group, for decades, as the center of reference for advanced research in structural mechanics in Italy, as also internationally witnessed by his still being a Member-at-Large of the IUTAM General Assembly (see Appendix 9 forward).

The Italian school of plasticity was represented significantly in other academic institutions, too, in a context of transversal intellectual commonality and also personal friendships. At the University of Bologna, Michele Capurso contributed meaningful results on the extremum characterization of incremental elastic–plastic solutions [23], on rigid-plastic dynamic responses, and on upper bounds on values attained by history-dependent quantities after shakedown of elastic–plastic structures under cyclic loads [24], also in the presence of fractured materials [25]. Sadly, he passed away prematurely, at the very height of his scientific maturity. In turn, at the University of Palermo, Castrenze Polizzotto, who also nourished younger scholars and is still active at a ripe old age, obtained valuable results on a variety of topics in plasticity. They include shakedown within dynamics [26] and damage mechanics, related bounding techniques of plastic deformations [27], steady state response of structures under cyclic thermo-mechanical loads, strain gradient plasticity theory [28], elastic–plastic, limit and shakedown analysis by the symmetric BEM [22].

Stability, structural dynamics, and engineering applications of elasticity were worthily addressed at the University of Genova in Riccardo Baldacci’s school. In the years to come, his two main disciples, Edoardo Benvenuto and Alfredo Corsanego, would have become a scholar of international reference in the history of structural mechanics [29], and a scientist of national reference as to the seismic risk and vulnerability assessment of buildings and territorial systems, respectively. Both paid a main care to the conservation and safety of Italy’s architectural and monumental heritage, according to a more conceptual or more practically-oriented perspective. Actually, the early Italian center for earthquake engineering was Giuseppe Grandori’s school at the Polytechnic of Milano, with his disciple Vincenzo Petrini later playing an important role, along with Carlo Gavarini from the University of Roma La Sapienza, in the methodological and organizational definition of technical procedures for effectively handling seismic and post-seismic emergencies.

In the even more applied context of structural engineering, two early meaningful schools grown up in the academic environment of solid mechanics are to be mentioned: Franco Levi’s school on reinforced concrete structures at the Polytechnic of Torino, and the school on steel structures established at the Polytechnic of Milano by Leo Finzi, who was one of the eight founders of AIMETA.

Finally, at the University of Napoli, just after the establishment of AIMETA, there was the academic separation of the engineering-oriented group around another AIMETA founder, Elio Giangreco, widely active on theory of structures, from the group of Vincenzo Franciosi, active on more fundamental topics of solid and structural mechanics. In this more pertinent context, the school of the latter has to be mentioned, too, for the variety of its interests and for the capability to train a group of smart young scientists, who would have later contributed significantly to both theoretical and more technical aspects.

Scientific results obtained within all these schools were always presented at AIMETA national congresses and were often also published in Meccanica, especially in its early years when almost only the pertinent schools’ ‘fathers’ were involved.

4 80s, 90s and Beyond: The Time of AIMETA Consolidation

Over the 70s, AIMETA congresses were attended by a meaningful and increasing, yet still relatively limited, number of presenting scholars (Appendix 4, Table 7), coming mostly—though obviously not only—from the communities around the many different and well-recognized protagonists of the long post-2nd WW revival of mechanics in Italy. Roughly speaking, the following two decades may be considered the time of the definitive affirmation of AIMETA congresses as the reference biennial event for the exchange of scientific knowledge within a community which was undergoing an important quantitative growth and a meaningful generation change, with young professors born at about the 2nd WW time or just after it coming significantly into play. In this respect, a non-trivial role was also played by the reorganization of university institutions and recruitment procedures occurred at the beginning of the 80s, and by the explosion of scientific mobility at both international and national level.

While in the 70s contributions were relatively well balanced among the four areas of AIMETA in numerical terms, over the 80s changes in the composition of congresses’ attendees started to occur. Participation from the solid mechanics area strongly increased, with also a differentiation between contributions more clearly focused on fundamental aspects of mechanics of solids and materials, and contributions paying attention also, or mostly, to phenomenological aspects of the structural response. Since Genova 1982, this differentiation reflected in the formal grouping of the two kinds of contributions under distinct headings (‘mechanics of solids’ and ‘mechanics of structures’) in both the congresses’ programs and the relevant proceedings. This distinction was sometimes questionable from the scientific viewpoint. Anyway, the increased attendance from mechanics of solids and structures, further enhanced in the decades to come, entailed an increase from four to five in the nominal number of areas’ representatives in the AIMETA Executive Council (Appendix 3), and in other formal initiatives (e.g., the number of AIMETA Junior Prizes, see Appendix 7 forward) later undertaken by the AIMETA governing boards.

On the other hand, starting with the 80s, attendance of scientists from the other AIMETA areas slightly decreased (certainly in percentage), although with variable and oscillating trends over the decades. From about the 90s, this occurred in particular as regards general mechanics, also somehow in connection with a progressive reduction in the presence and role of the related disciplines (typically, Rational Mechanics) in the teaching curricula of Italian schools of engineering. This trend further increased around the turn of the millennium, with the transition in the organization of the relevant studies from the early, successful and worldwide recognized, 5-year system to the 3 + 2 system, which substantially deprived the mechanical disciplines of their most important theoretical fundamentals, irrespective of some possible (though anyway doubtful) merits occurring in other engineering areas. Scholars of theoretical mechanics increasingly considered their topics better centered in scientific events organized by associations like the National Group for Mathematical Physics (GNFM) or the Italian Society of Applied and Industrial Mathematics (SIMAI).

A certain reduction of centrality of AIMETA congresses with respect to topics in the areas of mechanics of machines and mechanics of fluids was perceived in the relevant communities, too, although to a definitely minor extent. As to the former, after a non-trivial increase of attendance occurred in the first decade of the new millennium, a somehow uncertain attitude towards AIMETA of scientists active in more technologically-oriented fields, like machine construction and design, has to be mentioned, even though a meaningful core of applied mechanicians always feel themselves fully at home within AIMETA. Actually, this evolution should also be related to a general widening of scientific perspectives and topics of interest (e.g., micro/nanomechanics and biomechanics) occurred mostly in the new millennium, and also reflected in a modified organization of the AIMETA congress with a progressive transition to a symposia-based scheme (Appendix 4, Table 8).

As regards fluid mechanics, the 80s and 90s marked a kind of bifurcation between excellent scientists from mechanical university environments constantly considering themselves, and their topics, well centered within AIMETA activities/events, and scientists from aeronautical environments more explicitly attracted by other conference series, e.g. the one organized by the Italian Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIDAA). Anyway, fluid topics and people from qualified hydraulic environments of civil engineering have always been well represented in AIMETA.

All of the above issues are concerned with the presence of the different scientific areas in the AIMETA congresses. Somehow surprisingly, the situation was quite different as regards the AIMETA journal. Indeed, therein, over both the 80s and the 90s, quantitative contributions from Italian scholars in solid and structural mechanics were only comparable to, if not even lower than, those from each one of the other three areas. In particular, the ‘new’ generation of mid-age scientists in the former area often preferred to submit their works to other international journals, with either a longer and better established tradition or a more clear focus in a given, and often ‘novel’, scientific field. An undue and obviously undeclared, yet underlying, need of verifying the quality of personal and Italian research at an ‘actually’ international level certainly played a role. However, other circumstances were also important, namely Meccanica being a journal (i) published by an Italian company (until 1990), (ii) with a too general scope (possibly not at the highest level, according to some perception) in mechanics, and (iii) with a board of solely Italian Associate Editors (until March 1991). Why this mostly occurred in the area of solid and structural mechanics and lasted in the 90s, too, when the number of contributions to Meccanica by highly qualified foreign scientists just from that area started to meaningfully increase, is a matter left to the thoughts of science historians.

In the 90s, the limitations for the journal success associated with the above three points were addressed in an editorial by Giuliano Augusti. He observed that the “Meccanica birth-mark ……. of publishing in English the most important Italian contributions to Mechanics”, even with the non-acceptance of a paper “unless written by an Italian author or developed with some connection with the world of Italian Mechanics”, had been overcome only a few years before [30]. Indeed, the search for “an Editor willing (and able) to solicit papers from non-Italian scientists”, and the transition to an actually international publisher (Kluwer Academic) guaranteeing a wider circulation occurred in 1991. Over the 90s, papers by qualified non-Italian authors were around half the total number, or more.

As to the very broad scope of the Journal, already considered “a rare occasion for the productive encounter, exchange and cross-fertilization of ideas in a time of exasperated specialization in the publishing world” [1], Augusti claimed that in a time of “so many specialized journals on the market, a general mechanics journal has its scientific reasons and its viable space”. Later, the matter was addressed by other Editors of Meccanica. They pointed out that the focus of the journal is on “sharing the common methodological framework of all scientists working in whatever field of mechanics, and on highlighting phenomenology and application aspects occurring in modern mechanical problems” [31], while also noting that, due to the variety of papers, “balancing theoretical and more application-oriented works is an important item for a journal which likely, in the past, gave major emphasis to the former” [32]. Overall, the choice to maintain the general and interdisciplinary character of the journal was confirmed, however strengthening measures to favorably account for the ever increasing, and likely irreversible, trend towards specialization. Among them, special issues built around a clearly identified topic, and often devoted to novel research lines, with also the involvement of foreign guest editors of high-quality, are to be mentioned (Appendix 5). Indeed, since about the end of the 90s, they have increasingly appeared in Meccanica, up to becoming a substantially regular and appealing ingredient of the journal in the last decade, as it has occurred for other high-quality journals.

After all, the trend towards explicitly identifying specific topics of interest for the community and grouping expert scientists around them—which is at one time a cause and an effect of specialization—had become apparent also in other AIMETA activities. Indeed, since about mid-80s, a third pillar was established in the basket of AIMETA activities, i.e. the so-called AIMETA Groups steadily devoted to a given subfield of mechanics and aimed at connecting the involved scientists through specifically dedicated conferences, with also features of transversality among the different areas (Appendix 6). The early Groups (Computational Mechanics, Theory of Machines and Mechanisms, Stochastic Mechanics, Mechanics of Materials and Structures, Tribology) were progressively paralleled/replaced by new/renamed ones (Mechanics of Materials, Biomechanics, Continuum Mechanics, Turbulence, Kinematics and Dynamics of Multibody Systems, Dynamics and Stability), with also further articulations and changes introduced to better characterize the fields of interest. Data and information on some main initiatives undertaken by the currently active Groups are listed in Appendix 6 (Tables 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16).

Focusing on the area of solid and structural mechanics, it is worth compiling a gross list of core fundamental fields steadily pursued in the 80s and 90s, and extending to the beginning of the new millennium, too. Non-exhaustive lists of academic institutions where the related topics have been best practiced, with also international recognition, are also mentioned, however with no names of involved scientists being provided, due to the lack of an adequate historical perspective and a matter of opportunity.

  • Computational mechanics (Pavia, Polytechnic of Milano, Padova, Cosenza, Brescia, …….)

  • Continuum mechanics, finite elasticity and plasticity (Pisa, Roma Tor Vergata, Ferrara, Udine, Bologna, Parma, Trento, Napoli Federico II, Polytechnic of Milano, Palermo, Bari, …….)

  • Dynamics, stability, bifurcation, chaos, and their control (Genova, Firenze, L’Aquila, Roma La Sapienza, Polytechnic of Marche, Palermo, Messina, …..)

  • Inverse problems and identification (Polytechnic of Milano, Roma La Sapienza, Udine, …..)

  • Mechanics of materials, damage and fracture (Polytechnic of Torino, Polytechnic of Milano, Genova, Bologna, Padova, Trento, Napoli Federico II, Cassino, ………..)

  • Modern and historical structures: modeling, analysis, response (all universities/polytechnics)

  • Stochastic mechanics, probability, wind and earthquake engineering (Pavia, Palermo, Messina, Genova, Roma La Sapienza, L’Aquila, Napoli Federico II, Firenze, …….)

As to Meccanica, it is also worth mentioning its somehow peculiar nature of a journal well founded in the Italian tradition of mechanics, on one hand, and opened to a wide vision of the evolution of science, on the other hand, by shortly dwelling on two related items. The first item is concerned with the attention worthily paid also to some historical aspects of the evolution of mechanics, mostly (though not only) in the national context. This is witnessed by a number of articles appeared in both earlier and recent times on the Italian contribution to mechanics [33], or about general and specific achievements of Italian scientists of earlier centuries in both the mathematical and the engineering environment [34,35,36,37,38,39,40]. A general care to the evolution of mechanics in the international context has also to be noticed (see, e.g., [11, 41, 42]). The second item is consistent with the wide scope of the journal in general cultural terms, and refers to the publication of papers, written by well-known mechanicians, dwelling on criteria, features and trends of research, with also critical and warning considerations [43,44,45].

5 The New Millennium: Widening of Scientific Perspectives, Further Generation Change, and New AIMETA Initiatives

Due to the great acceleration of technological transformations in the XIX and, mostly, XX century, changes in whatever realm of life (cultural, economic, social) have been increasingly characterized by changes of paradigm under the sign of innovation. This has also happened in science where, however, remarkable features of continuity can also be recognized. In particular, at about the turn of the millennium, a number of meaningful technological changes entailed a non-trivial redefinition of the fields of scientific interest in applied mechanics, making trends already existing in the previous few decades fully apparent and, mostly, ubiquitous. At the same time, a new generation of scientists came to the fore.

Of course, classical scientific fields did persist, along with the relevant themes. However, their characters of unity and internal coherence began to be overlooked in favor of the explicit identification of specific sub-themes, according to a trend ever increasing towards particularization and specialization. At the same time, another, and seemingly opposite, trend became apparent: the need to overcome traditional boundaries between scientific areas and to hybridize the relevant themes, by virtue of an increasingly recognized transversality of methods and technological scales, and cross-correlation between theoretical/physical contexts and the associated phenomena. This being a circumstance already experienced in the realm of physical sciences, and transferred to the engineering realm with a physiological time delay.

As regards AIMETA congresses, since about beginning of the new millennium papers accepted for presentation in a given area, out of the five constituent ones, were grouped a posteriori around a main characterizing theme/subject. Alternatively, although in the same spirit, the selection of well identified scientific fields and of a number of expert scholars suitable to meaningfully and possibly comprehensively deal with them, led to the a priori organization of Special Sessions and/or Minisymposia in the programs of congresses (Appendix 4, Table 8). In this regard, attention was also paid to their possible transversality with respect to AIMETA areas, mostly in more recent times, as per the cross-disciplinary nature and scope of the Association.

In turn, Meccanica published more and more studies in interdisciplinary fields at the border between different areas of mechanics, such as fluid–solid interaction, acoustic–structural coupling, and thermomechanics, or between mechanics and other mathematical and engineering sciences, including control, advanced materials, dynamical systems, computation, electromechanics, and biomechanics [46]. New challenges concerned with the interaction between mechanics and chemical reactions, and biological signal transmissions were considered of interest for the journal, too [47].

In the international perspective, the list of ‘novel’ fields of interest to the community, with the underlying research themes, could be built by looking at the articulation of the AIMETA activities, as made explicit through the congresses, the journal organization and publications, and the groups. Indeed, browsing through the lists of (i) key lectures delivered at national congresses, (ii) relevant subgroups of papers, special sessions and minisymposia, (iii) special issues of Meccanica, and (iv) formally established AIMETA groups, as reported in Appendices 4–6, helps getting an overall view of the scientific topics of interest in a given area and in a certain period of time. Moreover, looking at the numbers of involved people gives an idea of the most frequented of those topics. Overall, the relative qualitative and quantitative evolutions over the last two decades can be better monitored than for previous decades, this being in the writer’s opinion the maximum effort that can be made in order to get a comprehensive and comparative view of what has been going on with the matter up to now.

Focusing again on the area of solid and structural mechanics, the generation of scholars born during the 2nd WW or just after it is now smoothly coming to its term, upon having been active for about 40 years or more. The new generation, which started replacing it since about the beginning of the new millennium, is obviously more prepared to catch the new signs of the times. The core research fields listed in Sect. 4 were still practiced with continuity, yet introducing proper relevant redefinitions and complementing them with fully ‘novel’ research topics, either more specialized (even when dealing with fundamentals) in accordance with the objectives and purposes of an underlying scientific/technological environment, or more transversal to different areas of mechanics and beyond them. A partially updated rough list of novel/redefined macro-fields can be given as follows:

  • Advanced computational mechanics, also including parallelizable algorithms

  • Biomechanics

  • Exploiting nonlinearity in mechanics: analysis, geometry, computation, engineering design

  • Modeling, analysis and phenomenology at different space and time scales, with emphasis on micro/nano-systems and multifunctional structures

  • Multifield complex and/or architected materials, mechanical metamaterials

  • Multiphysics problems

  • New/hybridized topics beyond mechanics, including artificial neural network, additive manufacturing, renewable energy systems, probabilistic data-driven models, machine learning-based methods, uncertainty quantification issues, …………

  • Nonlinear dynamics, bifurcation, chaos, synchronization, wave propagation, localization, control

  • Nonlinear identification, structural health monitoring, energy harvesting

  • Reduced order modelling.

Here, no academic institutions are mentioned. This is also due to the definitive affirmation of a couple of newly established research paradigms. On one hand, the increased collaboration between people from groups based at different (and often also international) institutions, made possible by the improvements of tools for virtual meetings, and then brought to its extreme consequences in the Covid-pandemic time. On the other hand, the enhanced cross-disciplinary nature of the ‘novel’ fields, with collaborations being established between people belonging to completely distinct academic groups. All of this has somehow reduced the possibility to unequivocally identify schools of reference geographically localized, while enhancing the role played by single scientists in the framework of trans-institutional and/or cross-disciplinary collaborations.

In the mood for a better dissemination, characterization, and possible reward of scientific research, changes occurred also in the two main activities of AIMETA, since about the beginning of the new millennium, along with some later new initiatives. Upon moving to the Springer publishing company (since 2002), whose professionalism was crucial to the definitive success of the journal, Meccanica gradually increased the number of issues per year up to twelve, in order to face the meaningful growth of good papers authored by foreign scientists from both advanced and ‘emerging’ countries in all over the world. The number of special issues devoted to specific research topics and possibly edited also by solely foreign internationally recognized scholars markedly grew, too, up to making them nearly periodic. Currently, nearly two thirds of the Associate Editors of the journal are renowned foreign scientists from all over the world, with full responsibility of managing, in their field of expertise, the review process of each submission, on invitation of the Editor in Chief. Papers by foreign scientists have become the vast majority. AIMETA ‘fathers’ and some following generations of Italian scholars of mechanics would likely complain the fully pursued internationalization of the journal, which certainly deprives it of its Italian ‘identity’, even though some senior and cultured foreign scholars are still able to catch it. This is the case of, e.g., the renowned ones having relationships with the Italian academy, through scientific collaboration with AIMETA or other Italian mechanicians, who were invited to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Meccanica with papers published in a meaningful, dedicated special issue [48]. Moreover, it can likely be caught, behind the standard international appearance, also in some lasting features of the journal, as the mentioned care to historical aspects of mechanical sciences and to ‘societal’ effects of scientific research. The above is of course a general price to pay to globalization, whose effects in terms of journal visibility in the worldwide community of theoretical and applied mechanicians, which include a possibly high journal ranking, have become definitely important, irrespective of the inflated value certainly given to this kind of classifications.

In turn, as already mentioned, scientific programs of AIMETA congresses paid increasing attention to the apparent specification of research fields, up to being organized nearly only as a collection of large minisymposia, possibly, but not necessarily, reflecting researches being conducted in the framework of AIMETA Groups. One more relevant aspect to be mentioned is the frequently resumed discussion, in the new millennium, about the possible transformation of AIMETA congresses in international events, as per, e.g., the German GAMM (Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik) scheme. However, while participants were asked to write contributions for the congress proceedings in English, it was finally agreed that the community of Italian mechanics is already large enough and qualified to guarantee a biennial meeting of the underlying communities with a satisfactory exchange of advanced knowledge and information, also by virtue of their anyway active involvement in other, and even possibly too many, international events. Mostly, AIMETA congresses represent the ideal place to meet periodically varied people from the rich Italian community of mechanics, and to become acquainted with new generations of scientists.

Two important new initiatives undertaken in the new millennium should also be noted. The first is the establishment (2009) of AIMETA Junior Prizes awarded by a dedicated committee any two years, on the occasion of the national congress, to the best young researcher in each one of the five constituent areas of the association (Appendix 7). This new initiative has been widely appreciated by young scientists, with the submission of a good number of excellent nominations. This occurred notwithstanding a traditional allergy of Italian people towards individual recognitions, differently from other countries, which is likely a somehow improper byproduct of the affirmation of even too many individual entities at all (i.e., personal and institutional) levels in the long history of our country. Along the same line, Awards for best PhD Theses have been established by several AIMETA Groups (Appendix 6).

The second initiative is concerned with the organization of a summer school for PhD students and post-doc researchers on a variable topic, which, after some earlier attempts, has been eventually realized via a formal agreement with the International Centre for Mechanical Sciences, through a CISM-AIMETA Advanced School being held in Udine every year (Appendix 8).

Links of AIMETA with international associations in the area of mechanics are also to be noted, starting with the meaningful presence of Italian mechanics in the IUTAM activities. Notwithstanding the chronical low care paid by the Italian governments to the needs of scientific research, Italy is one of the few countries (along with Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and UK) having since long times four representatives in the IUTAM General Assembly (with only China and USA having more) (Appendix 9). Three of them are designated by the AIMETA and one by the National Research Council. Italian scholars are also meaningfully present within IUTAM Committees (Congress Committee, Fluid and Solid Symposia Panels), and as invited organizers/lecturers at both the International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM)—which is the biggest scientific event in the area of mechanical sciences held every four years—, and in the IUTAM Symposia held every year on different subjects. As a general recognition of the overall quality of Italian mechanics, the 25th ICTAM (originally planned in Milano for 2020) has been held successfully online in 2021, due to the pandemic issue, under the organization of the solid and structural mechanics group of the Polytechnic, and the meaningful support of AIMETA and the whole Italian community.

Links with other associations include the European Mechanics Society (EUROMECH), via a long lasting affiliation (since 1995), the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM), the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS), which the AIMETA Group of Computational Mechanics is the Italian member of, and more recently with the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (CSTAM).

6 Conclusions, with an Overlook to the Future

In this paper, the evolution of theoretical and applied mechanics in Italy has been overviewed, as observed from the perspective of its national association AIMETA, after fifty plus years from its foundation. While being articulated in five constituent scientific areas (general mechanics, solids, structures, fluids, machines) since about its foundation, the various AIMETA activities have been developed over the decades within a substantially unitary framework, this being definitely a worth feature as regards the organization of mechanical sciences in Italy. Qualitative and quantitative evolution of the Association and of its two long-lasting activities—the international journal Meccanica and the National Congress –, besides the most recent ones, has been retraced in detail, by also referring to the seemingly whole set of carefully reconstructed data and information collected in the Appendices. It has been possible to get an overview of the main research themes addressed within the five component areas over fifty plus years, and of some relevant involved scientists, with also a focus on what has been going on in the specific area of solid and structural mechanics where the writer has been active for more than forty years. Overall, the fundamental role played by AIMETA in monitoring the evolution of theoretical and applied mechanics in Italy, and in somehow orientering and fostering the research of the underlying communities has clearly emerged.

AIMETA is obviously expected to be the Association of reference for mechanical sciences in Italy also in the decades to come. However, since about the turn of the millennium, the role of mechanics within the whole basket of mathematical and engineering sciences has non-trivially evolved. In his foreword appeared in the first issue of Meccanica (1971), the first AIMETA President, Bruno Finzi, referred to Mechanics as the “most ample science, multiform, in unceasing, bewildering development; the ‘Paradise of the mathematical sciences’, as Leonardo said, and the cornerstone of every physical science too, which informs our present-day civilization to such an extent that it has well been said that we are living in the Age of Mechanics” [2]. Now, the situation is definitely different.

Within the current context of mathematical and engineering sciences, mechanical ones can be considered to have reached a plateau, if not even a turning point, of their glorious and long-lasting parabola of growth, though still having in front of them rich perspectives in terms of further renovation and, mostly, of hybridization and cross-fertilization with other sciences. Of course, this will somehow affect also the identity, the scope and the activities of the associations of reference at both the international level (IUTAM) and the national ones (AIMETA and equivalent foreign associations). To what extent, in which directions, and in how much time this will occur is left to the vision and the practice of the follow-up generations of scholars of Mechanics.