About the Department
Since the establishment of the Technical Faculty in Niš in 1960, and subsequently the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in 1971, the Department of Mechanics has been responsible for teaching courses in mechanics and strength of materials.
From 1974 to 1985, the Department also covered teaching in automatic control and operated under the name Department of Mechanics and Automatic Control. Following the separation of the automatic control group in 1985, the Department returned to its original name – Department of Mechanics.
Teaching Activities
The courses taught by the Department provide fundamental theoretical knowledge for almost all areas of mechanical engineering. At the undergraduate level, the main areas include:
- Statics
- Strength of Materials
- Kinematics
- Dynamics
- Theory of Vibrations
The Department is also involved in doctoral education in Applied Mechanics, covering advanced topics such as analytical mechanics, elasticity and fracture mechanics, composite structures, nonlinear vibrations, plates and shells, stochastic processes in mechanical systems, and stability of elastic structures.
Research Activities
Research activities of the Department cover theoretical, computational and experimental mechanics. Particular areas of interest include dynamics and vibrations, stability of mechanical systems, elasticity and fracture mechanics, composite structures, nonlinear mechanics and experimental mechanics.
Members of the Department cooperate with researchers and corresponding departments at universities and research institutions in Serbia and abroad and publish their results in international and national scientific journals.
Laboratory for Mechanics
The Department operates a laboratory equipped for experimental research. Its equipment includes an eight-channel Spider 8 measurement system, a QuantumX electronic measurement system with displacement and force transducers, a reflection polariscope for optical stress analysis, a digital system for isochromatic fringe-order determination, and a He-Ne laser system.