Plasma is the fourth state of matter, and is contrasted with the other states: solid, liquid, and gas. Plasma can exist in various forms due to discharge modes that are created in different ways, resulting in a wide range of applications. Plasma applications are interdisciplinary research fields that combine physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. The aim of this Special Issue is to collect original research and review articles on the most recent plasma applications and diagnose their processes, to elucidate the characteristics of plasma and the mechanisms of plasma-induced processes.

Advances in Mechanics is a comprehensive academic journal supervised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and jointly sponsored by the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, focusing on publishing high-level review articles in the field of mechanics, with special attention to the bidirection drive of mechanics and applications.

Flexible electronics are electronics that can be stretched, bent, twisted, and deformed into arbitrary shapes. They break through the bottleneck and monopoly of traditional, rigid IC technologies and represent the next-generation electronics. This book provides an overview of the underlying theory and method of structural design for flexible electronics. Compared to intrinsically flexible and stretchable materials, structural engineering has proven its unique advantages, e.g. stretchable inorganic electronics.

Heterostructured (HS) materials represent an emerging class of materials that are expected to become a major research field for the communities of materials, mechanics, and physics in the next couple of decades. One of the biggest advantages of HS materials is that they can be produced by large-scale industrial facilities and technologies and therefore can be commercialized without the scaling up and high-cost barriers that are often encountered by other advanced materials. This book collects recent papers on the progress in the field of HS materials, especially their fundamental physics. The papers are arranged in a sequence of chapters that will help new researchers entering the field to have a quick and comprehensive understanding of HS materials, including the fundamentals and recent progress in their processing, characterization, and properties.

This book reviews the status quo and visions for the future in the wind energy industry in China and around the globe, focusing on its roles in optimizing energy structure, alleviating environmental pollution, and coping with climate change. Providing a blueprint of wind power development till 2050, it suggests a series of further measures in the context of policies, regulations, laws, and marketing in order to overcome the existing bottlenecks. Moreover, it proposes a number of potential innovative technologies related to IT+ and advanced manufacturing, including integrated & distributed power and micro-grid systems, multi-energy complement, green and intelligent manufacturing, reliability design, blade design, manufacturing and maintenance, drive drain systems, and offshore wind farms. This book offers researchers and engineers insights into sustainable development in the wind power industry.

This book introduces a trans-scale framework necessary for the physical understanding of breakdown behaviors and presents some new paradigm to clarify the mechanisms underlying the trans-scale processes. The publication of this book based on the interaction of mechanics and statistical physics can help to deepen the understanding of how microdamage induces disaster and benefit the forecasting of the occurrence of catastrophic rupture. The readers of the book would be graduate students, researchers, engineers working on civil, mechanical and geo-engineering, etc. However, people with various background but interested in disaster reduction and forecasting, like applied physics, geophysics, seismology, etc., may also be interested in the book.

This book presents the life science experiments in a space microgravity environment conducted on board the SJ-10 recoverable satellite, which was launched on April 6th 2016 and recovered on April 18th 2016. It covers 10 scientific projects in radiation biology, gravitational biology and biotechnology that were selected from ~100 proposals from various institutions in China and around the world. Primarily exploring the rhythm of life in a space microgravity environment, all of the experiments – conducted on nine payloads of the SJ-10 satellite – have never been previously conducted in the respective fields. In addition, the book provides extensive information on the mission’s execution, data collection, and scientific outcomes.

This book presents the physical science experiments in a space microgravity environment conducted on board the SJ-10 recoverable satellite, which was launched on April 6th, 2016 and recovered on April 18th, 2016. The experiments described were selected from ~100 proposals from various institutions in China and around the world, and have never previously been conducted in the respective fields. They involve fluid physics and materials science, and primarily investigate the kinetic properties of matter in a space microgravity environment. The book provides a comprehensive review of these experiments, as well as the mission’s execution, data collection, and scientific outcomes.

The GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite was launched in 2002 and great progress has been obtained in the Earth science and applications. The GRACE follow-on is a mission discussed broadly by the scientists and managers of space agencies all over the world to has an improved resolution of space and time for better geophysical applications. A program of Space Advance Gravity Measurement (SAGM) was arranged by the Strategic Priority Research Program on Space Science, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the idea of GRACE follow-on mission in China is discussed, including the mission goal, the research on Earth science and application, and the studies on critical technologies such as the inertial sensor, laser interferometer, micro propulsion, drag free technology, and satellite platform.

Nominated by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences as an outstanding thesis in its field. Includes a systematic analysis of micro-adhesion and micro-reversible adhesion mechanisms of film/substrate structure. Provides a theoretical foundation for designing gecko-inspired micro-climbing robots and high-quality interfaces.

Adiabatic shear bands are found in a variety of metals and other materials; they cause rapid weakening due to energy concentration into narrow regions of the material. This is the very first book on this important topic and the only true introduction to the subject. An enhanced and updated student-friendly edition of the authors' 1992 book Adiabatic Shear Localization: Occurrence, Theories and Applications, this seminal text now includes essential Further Reading sections in some chapters. It explains adiabatic shear bands in a descriptive rather than a mathematical way, with a ‘quick reference’ section for readers wanting a more rapid introduction. Entirely comprehensive, the reader can dip into the chapters as suits his or her course material or research.

Adiabatic shear localization is a mode of failure that occurs in dynamic loading. It is characterized by thermal softening occurring over a very narrow region of a material and is usually a precursor to ductile fracture and catastrophic failure. This reference source is the revised and updated version of the first detailed study of the mechanics and modes of adiabatic shear localization in solids. Building on the success of the first edition, the book provides a systematic description of a number of aspects of adiabatic shear banding.

The International Conference on Fluid Mechanics (ICFM) provides good opportunities for scientists to present their latest achievements in the ？elds of ？uid mechanics, including theoretical, experimental, and computational ？uid mechanics, as well as relevant interdisciplinary subjects. It also provides a forum for researchers to exchange their ideas with originality. It is organized by the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (CSTAM) and had been successful held in Beijing (1987, 1993, 1998), Dalian (2004) and Shanghai (2007), while this one is the sixth of the series.

Dimensional analysis is an essential scientific method and a powerful tool for solving problems in physics and engineering. This book starts by introducing the Pi Theorem, which is the theoretical foundation of dimensional analysis. It also provides ample and detailed examples of how dimensional analysis is applied to solving problems in various branches of mechanics. The book covers the extensive findings on explosion mechanics and impact dynamics contributed by the author’s research group over the past forty years at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The book is intended for research scientists and engineers working in the fields of physics and engineering, as well as graduate students and advanced undergraduates of the related fields. Qing-Ming Tan is a former Professor at the Institute of Mechanics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.

Archimedes Bridge (AB) i.e. submerged floating tunnel (SFT), is a kind of floating transportation passage which is submerged underwater to bridge water banks. As an innovative transportation technology, AB will become attractive in competing with traditional bridges and tunnels due to its economical and environmental advantages. However at the present time, there is still not an actual AB being built in the world.The concept of AB was proposed for more than a century, and the researches and conceptual designs of AB with respect to several strait and lake areas were sporadically reported in the second half of past century. Due to scientific, technological and/or administrative uncertainties, such design projects were ceased or postponed.

This volume is the proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Fluid Mechanics (ICFM-V), the primary forum for the presentation of technological advances and research results in the fields of theoretical, experimental, and computational Fluid Mechanics. Following the previous conferences in Beijing (1987, 1993 and 1998) and Dalian (2004) organized by the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, the Scientific Committee for ICFM presents ICFM-V to provide a forum for researchers to exchange original ideas and recent advances in Fluid Mechanics and relevant interdisciplinary subjects.

Recently, we have seen that nano-structured materials demonstrate remarkable advantages over conventional ones, particularly in mechanical behaviors. Thiswill have a great impact on new technology and engineering in the new millennium. In accordance with this need, IUTAM decided to hold a symposium to discuss the prospect of the wonderful mechanical behaviors of nanostructured materials and their relevant micro-mechanics, to encourage the mechanics community to explore the frontier of science and technology. The aim of the symposiumwas to provide such a forum to all experts in bothmechanics and material sciences worldwide, to have an opportunity to exchange their research achievements and views in understanding these mechanical behaviors, exploring their applications, as well as enhancing their property designs of nanostrucutred materials.

This book elucidates the methods of molecular gas dynamics or rarefied gas dynamics which treat the problems of gas flows when the discrete molecular effects of the gas prevail under the circumstances of low density, the emphases being stressed on the basis of the methods, the direct simulation Monte Carlo method applied to the simulation of non-equilibrium effects and the frontier subjects related to low speed microscale rarefied gas flows. It provides a solid basis for the study of molecular gas dynamics for senior students and graduates in the aerospace and mechanical engineering departments of universities and colleges. It gives a general acquaintance of modern developments of rarefied gas dynamics in various regimes and leads to the frontier topics of non-equilibrium rarefied gas dynamics and low speed microscale gas dynamics.

Preface Plenary Session Flow Instability Turbulence Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics Hydrodynamics Environmental Fluid Mechanics Non-Newtonian Flows and Flows in Porous Media Multiphase Flows Industrial Fluid Mechanics Biofluid Mechanics Rarefied Gas Dynamics and Microscale Flows Computational Fluid Mechanics Experimental Fluid Mechanics Supplement Author Index

The International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW) is a well established series of conferences held every two years in a different location. A unique feature of the ISSW is the emphasis on bridging the gap between physicists and engineers working in fields as different as gas dynamics, fluid mechanics and materials sciences. The main results presented at these meetings constitute valuable proceedings that offer anyone working in this field an authoritative and comprehensive source of reference.

The microgravity research, as a branch of the advanced sciences and a spe- cialized field of high technology, has been made in China since the late 1980's. The research group investigating microgravity fluid physics consisted of our col- leagues and the authors in the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and we pay special attention to the floating zone convection as our first research priority. Now, the research group has expanded and is a part of the National Microgravity Laboratory of the CAS, and the research fields have been extended to include more subjects related to microgravity science. Howev- er, the floating zone convection is still an important topic that greatly holds our research interests.

This book contains the Proceedings of the ICSU/WMO international symposium on Tropical Cyclone Disasters held in October, 1992, Beijing China , which constituted a part of the Joint Program on tropical Cyclone Disasters adopted by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and by the World Meteorology Organization (WMO) in recognition of the enumerous loss of life and property that the world population suffers from tropical cyclone disasters.