Introduction to the Thermomechanics of Continua and Hyperbolic Systems

Prof. Tommaso Ruggeri is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Bologna, and he became a full professor of mathematical physics in 1980. He has given significant results on the propagation of nonlinear waves and in classical and relativistic continuous media. In the first field, he produced original contributions concerning the symmetrization of hyperbolic systems of balance laws when they are compatible with a convex entropy density and nonlinear problems concerning acceleration and shock waves. In nonequilibrium thermodynamics, he was one of the founders of modern Rational Extended Thermodynamics. With Ingo Mueller, he wrote the well-known book Rational Extended Thermodynamics (Springer-Verlag, 1993 and 1998), which is considered a seminal book in studies on thermodynamics nonequilibrium. This theory connects the macroscopic scale (continuous approach) and the mesoscopic scale (kinetic theory). Recent results are collected in the books in collaboration with Masaru Sugiyama: Rational Extended Thermodynamics beyond Monatomic Gas (Springer, 2015) and Classical and Relativistic Rational Extended Thermodynamics of Gases (Springer, 2021). He is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (the oldest science Academy of Western) and a member of the Academia Europaea, a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Art, a member of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc), and the Academy of Sciences of Bologna Naples, and Messina. He has been invited as a plenary speaker at various international meetings and has been a visiting professor at many universities (Stanford, Brown, Paris, Berlin, Seoul, Taipei, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Kyoto, Beijing, etc.). He was also Director of the National Group of Mathematical Physics and President of the Scientific Committee of the Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica.

• - Matrix Operators on Vectors.- Deformation of a Continuum.- Kinematics of a Continuum.- Forces on a Continuum and Stress Tensor.- Balance Laws in Continuum Mechanics.- Constitutive Equations.- Elasticity and Thermoelasticity.- Fluids.- Rigid Heat Conductor.- Hyperbolic Systems.- Weak Solutions and ShockWaves.- Beyond Classical Thermomechanics.