The first International Conference on Mechanical System Dynamics grandly convened in Nanjing, China

The first International Conference on Mechanical System Dynamics (ICMSD), a major international conference in the field of mechanical system dynamics, was held as a hybrid in-person/virtual conference during the period August 24–27, 2022, in Nanjing, China, an ancient major cultural city. More than 2000 scientists and engineering experts from more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Oceania, including 29 members of the National Academy of Sciences/Engineering, 13 presidents of international academic societies, and 15 Editors-in-Chief of international journals, attended the conference, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. Focusing on the theme of “Promoting Science, Technology and Industry by Mechanical System Dynamics,” the conference defines a new chapter in the development of the field of mechanical system dynamics. The standing ICMSD is jointly initiated and organized by well-recognized researchers from more than 20 leading universities in more than 10 countries, including the Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Aarhus University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, LUT University, McGill University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanyang Technological University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Peking University, Politecnico di Milano, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Swansea University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the State University of New York, Korea (SUNY Korea), Tsinghua University, University of Aberdeen, University of Siegen, University of Wollongong, and Wuhan University. The conference is held every 2 years in different countries in rotation. The Standing Steering Committee (see Appendix A) of ICMSD now consists of 35 international experts, including 15 members of the National Academy of Sciences/Engineering, 14 presidents of international academic societies, and 14 Editors-in-Chief of international journals. They oversee the ICMSD planning and development. Prof. Xiaoting Rui from the Nanjing University of Science and Technology, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is the ICMSD Chairman. Profs. Marco Amabili from McGill University, a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering; Seung-Bok Choi from the State University of New York, Korea, a fellow of the Korea Science and Technology Academy; Yonggang Huang from Northwestern University, a member of the National Academy of Engineering/Sciences, USA; Aki Mikkola from the LUT University, the Chair of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science, IFToMM Finland; Tianshou Zhao from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, are the ICMSD Vice Chairmen. The first ICMSD was hosted by the Nanjing University of Science and Technology, the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, the International Association of Applied Mechanics, the John Wiley & Sons Inc., and the International Journal of Mechanical System Dynamics (IJMSD), and cohosted by 35 affiliations including Peking University and Tsinghua University. It is sponsored by 17 organizations, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the China Association for Science and Technology. The host, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, is a leading national university affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, which has a large campus and modern infrastructure, as shown in Figure 3. The first conference received a total of 422 submissions from 236 institutions from more than 10 countries. Among them, 315 papers were presented at the conference, and 11 renowned scientists from six countries, including nine members of the National Academy of Science/Engineering and five Editors-in-Chief of esteemed international journals, gave plenary and keynote speeches, covering four major research directions: (i) modeling, computation, and software developments; (ii) design, optimization, diagnostics, and control; (iii) measurement and testing; and (iv) applications of mechanical system dynamics. The conference selected eight best paper awards and recommended a large number of excellent conference papers to the IJMSD and other journals. The proceedings of the conference will be published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and indexed by Ei Compendex. On the morning of the 25th, the first ICMSD opened at the Shangri-La Hotel, Nanjing, with Prof. Weihong Zhang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee, presiding over the opening ceremony. Prof. Mengyin Fu, the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee of the first ICMSD and the President of Nanjing University of Science and Technology, delivered a welcome speech. Prof. Xiaoting Rui, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the ICMSD Chairman, delivered the opening speech. “Various mechanical systems, such as vehicles, airplanes, ships, high-speed trains, satellites, launch vehicles, space stations, robots, and machine tools, concern the economy and people's livelihood, and symbolize the comprehensive strength of a nation's science and technology. Their development is one of the main lines of the progress of human civilization and science, technology, and industry, which depended largely on the science and technology of mechanical system dynamics. By accurate dynamics modeling, fast computation, optimal design, simulation, and test, the mechanical system dynamics studies the objects’ motion laws and interaction of various mechanical systems during their whole lifecycle, including the design, manufacturing, testing, evaluation, and utilization, and involves multi-physics field such as force, electricity, light, magnetism, heat, sound, flow, and gas. Due to its important role, it has become one of the cornerstones of modern science, technology and industry such as machinery, aeronautics, astronautics, ship, and transportation, thus has been widely valued by countries around the world,” was pointed out by Prof. Xiaoting Rui (see Figures 4-6). Profs. Daining Fang, Aki Mikkola, Marco Amabili, Pierangelo Masarati, and Xuping Zhang, as members of the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee, gave speeches (see Figures 7-11). At the opening ceremony of the conference, Prof. Xiaoting Rui, Chairman of the Preparatory Committee of the International Society of Mechanical System Dynamics (ISMSD), and some other members of the Preparatory Committee of the ISMSD, Mr. Jinzhan Wang, the representative of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST), and Mr. Chunlei Sun, the representative of the Jiangsu Provincial Association for Science and Technology, jointly pressed the start button for the launching ceremony of the Preparatory Committee of the ISMSD. The present members of the Preparatory Committee of the ISMSD include Profs. Yixin Liu, Youwei Du, Shutang Li, Haiyan Hu, Kuiwu Li, Chuliang Yan, Zhigang Zou, Zhenguo Wang, Wanlin Guo, Shuxing Yang, Zhongde Shan, Tianshou Zhao, Guang Chen, Ning Gu, Zhigong Tang, and Jinsong Leng, who are also members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences/Engineering (see Figure 12). During the conference, 11 renowned scientists gave plenary and keynote speeches, as shown in Figures 13-23. Prof. Xiaoting Rui from Nanjing University of Science and Technology presented the “Multibody System Transfer Matrix Method and Its Applications,” an approach that is widely used in the design, manufacturing, testing, evaluation, and utilization of mechanical systems. The approach was introduced to address two major challenges in establishing system global dynamics equations and their efficient numerical solutions in the field of multibody system dynamics. The talk by Prof. Rui introduced the basic ideas, theory, algorithms, software, applications, and features of the approach. Prof. Haiyan Hu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from the Beijing Institute of Technology, gave a lecture “On Dynamic Modelling of Engineering Systems” about model discretization, model reduction, and interval parameters in dynamic modeling of systems with higher dimensions and great varieties. The dynamic models are either knowledge-driven models, such as a set of differential equations or differential-algebraic equations established using variational principles and finite elements, or data-driven models, such as an artificial neural network, trained via numerical and experimental results. Prof. Wanlin Guo, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, gave a speech on “Three Dimensional Fatigue Fracture of Mechanical Structures” to address the significant difference between the S–N-like material curves obtained by smooth samples and fatigue crack growth curves by cracked specimens, and presented a three-dimensional fracture mechanics-based strategy to achieve whole life prediction and explore the unification of fatigue and fracture mechanics. Prof. Tianshou Zhao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, gave a speech on “Storing Solar Energy with E-fuels,” a highly efficient, safe, scalable, and adaptable liquid e-fuel storage technology that breaks through the bottleneck of massive use of renewables. Prof. Marco Amabili, a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering from McGill University, gave a systematic presentation on “Nonlinear Vibrations of Shells: Modelling and Experiments” and discussed theoretical modifications, numerical simulations, and experimental tests of nonlinear vibrations of macro- to nano-scale shells made of traditional and composite materials with different boundary conditions. Prof. George Z. H. Zhu, a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering from York University, made a presentation on “Computation Control of Flexible Tether Systems with Finite Element Method and State Estimator” in which he discussed the proposed finite element state observer to estimate the discrete states along the tether length and model predictive control to control the geometric profile of an electrodynamic tether for space debris removal. Prof. Sharif Rahman from University of Iowa, USA, gave a presentation on “Uncertainty Quantification in Linear Dynamical Systems by Orthogonal Spline Expansions” in which he discussed spline chaos expansion and spline dimensional decomposition for solving uncertainty quantification problems from linear structural dynamics. Prof. Aki Mikkola from the LUT University, Finland, presented “Multibody System Dynamics Throughout the Product Lifecycle” and discussed the potential role of multibody system dynamics in product lifecycle, in the form of (i) gamification-based product development, (ii) new concepts in preventive maintenance that combine real-life data and simulation enabled by pervasive communication networks, (iii) autonomous machinery, and (iv) the adaptive optimization of manufacturing through applications of artificial intelligence. Prof. Chuanzeng Zhang, a member of the European Academy of Sciences from the University of Siegen, Germany, made the presentation “Vibration and Elastic Wave Suppression by Self-Adaptive Metamaterials” on the problem of narrow bandwidth in the frequency band gaps for tunable metamaterials in vibration and elastic wave suppression, and proposed self-adaptive metamaterials based on an active self-adaptive control strategy guided by the particle swarm optimization technique. Prof. Marian Wiercigroch, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from the University of Aberdeen, UK, gave a presentation on “Calibrated Low Dimensional Models in Non-smooth Dynamics,” addressing the dynamics of nonsmooth and nonlinear systems, effective modeling and analysis of low-dimensional dynamical systems, and nonlinear dynamics for engineering design. Prof. Ding Han, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, gave a presentation on “Dynamics of Chip Formation During Cutting Process Using Imaging Techniques,” summarizing the state of the art of imaging techniques during the cutting process, focusing on the working principle and adopted equipment, and the applications to the studies of the chip formation process, and surface integrity. The above presentations summarized the latest advances in mechanical system dynamics, representing the frontier of theory and application of this field, and highlighting future directions for software development, optimal design, diagnosis and control, measurement and testing, and engineering applications concerning mechanical system dynamics. A total of 206 oral presentations and 109 poster presentations were given by the participants, as shown in Figures 24-26. On the evening of August 25th, a banquet was hosted by the ICMSD Organizing Committee at the Shengshi Hall of Shangri-La Hotel, Nanjing, China. On behalf of the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee, Prof. Xiaoting Rui, the Chairman of the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee, ICMSD President, a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the host of the banquet, extended the warmest welcome to all participants. Subsequently, the faculties and students from the Arts and Culture Education Department of Nanjing University of Science and Technology gave entertainment performances: the singing and dancing “We are All Dream Chasers” and the Erhu ensemble “Battle Steeds Galloping Ahead.” On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the first ICMSD, the Chairman of University Council of Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Prof. Jun Zhang, presented the Grand Contribution Awards to both the China Ship Scientific Research Center and the Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industries Group Corp. Ltd. As representatives of the winners, Mr. Wenwei Wu, the Deputy Director of the China Ship Scientific Research Center, and Mr. Baojun Wu, the Minister of the Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industries Group Corp. Ltd., received the Grand Contribution Award. Prof. Wenhe Liao, the Deputy Chairman of University Council of Nanjing University of Science and Technology, made a toast on behalf of Nanjing University of Science and Technology, one of the ICMSD organizers, as shown in Figures 27-31. On the evening of August 27th, the IJMSD Editorial Board Meeting, the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee Meeting, and the ISMSD Preparatory Committee Meeting were held in person and online synchronously. Prof. Chuanzeng Zhang hosted the three meetings. At the IJMSD Editorial Board Meeting, Prof. Xiaoting Rui, the IJMSD Editor-in-Chief, welcomed the editorial board members. Assoc. Prof. Xuping Zhang, the IJMSD Executive Editor, reported the recent IJMSD progress. The 49 experts from 11 countries, including eight members of the National Academy of Sciences/Engineering, nine presidents of international academic societies, and eight Editors-in-Chief of international journals, focused on the theme of “attracting high-quality papers to increase the scientific impact of the journal,” and discussed journal issues, international contribution sources, peer review quality, timely publication, and promotion of the journal, as shown in Figures 32 and 33. At the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee Meeting, Prof. Xiaoting Rui, Chairman of the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee and ICMSD President, spoke and announced the ICMSD next host institution. Assoc. Prof. Qinbo Zhou, Secretary-General of the first ICMSD, presented the first ICMSD data and statistics. Assoc. Prof. Xuefeng Wang of Peking University, representing the host of the next conference, made a presentation about local arrangements and facilities. The 29 experts from six countries, including seven members of the National Academy of Sciences/Engineering, five presidents of international academic societies, and eight Editors-in-Chief of international journals, applauded the success of the first conference and expressed confidence that the second conference at Peking University would also be successful, as shown in Figures 34 and 35. At the ISMSD Preparatory Committee Meeting, Prof. Xiaoting Rui, President of the ISMSD Preparatory Committee, spoke warmly to all participants. Prof. Xue Rui, a member of the ISMSD Preparatory Committee, made a report on the preparations for the ISMSD Preparatory Committee, elaborating on the intention, basis, goals, and future plans of ISMSD. The Preparatory Committee of the International Society for Mechanical System Dynamics was officially formed. The committee consists of more than 100 renowned scientists from more than 20 countries on five continents: Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Oceania. The 44 experts from 11 countries, including 11 members of the National Academy of Sciences/Engineering, 10 presidents of international academic societies, and nine Editors-in-Chief of international journals, witnessed the event of establishment of the committee, as shown in Figures 36-38. On August 27th, Prof. Wanlin Guo, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee, hosted the first ICMSD closing ceremony. The Organizing Committee of the conference awarded the Best Paper Award and the Special Contribution Award of the Organizing Committee; see Figures 39-41. On the final day, Prof. Xiaoting Rui, ICMSD President and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered the closing remarks. On behalf of the IJMSD Editorial Board, he announced the decision to select 18 young talented researchers to serve as the IJMSD Young Scientists Editorial Board Members. On behalf of the ICMSD Standing Steering Committee, he announced the decision to select Peking University as the second ICMSD host and Prof. Caishan Liu as the local chairman with Beijing as the venue and conference to be conducted from September 1 to 5, 2023. On behalf of the ISMSD Preparatory Committee, Prof. Rui announced the official launch of ISMSD. The ISMSD Preparatory Committee consists of more than 100 renowned scientists from more than 50 universities and top 500 world enterprises in more than 20 countries on five continents, including more than 40 National Academy of Sciences/Engineering members. During this period, Prof. Caishan Liu introduced the preparation for the second ICMSD and showed a video to introduce the audience to the next conference, as shown in Figures 42-44. President Rui noted in his closing remarks that the first ICMSD was a great success. A large number of top scientists and engineering experts attended the event. The event presented a wide range of advanced scientific research achievements, which will significantly promote the development of science, technology, and industry, demonstrating ICMSD's role as a new international platform for academic exchange.