About department

 

Department of Strength of Materials and Engineering Mechanics was established at 2014 after connection Department of Strength of Materials and Department of Engineering mechanics. Senate of Vilnius Gediminas technical university 28 January 2014 approved Dr., Assoc. Prof. Stanislav Stupak by the department head position.

Department of Strength of Materials was established in Faculty of Civil Engineering of Vilnius Civil Engineering Institute in 1976 August 1 on the basis of Structural Mechanics Department (http://www.smk.st.vgtu.lt/en/about-department/history). Dr. habil. Professor Algirdas Eduardas Čižas became the first Head of the Department. In 1990 Department became subdivision in created Faculty of Fundamental Sciences of Vilnius Technical University. Eighteen years - from 1976 to 1994 - Head of the Department of Strength of Materials was prof. Habil. Dr., Professor Algirdas Eduardas Čižas, one year - from 1994 to 1995 - Dr., Assoc. Prof. Marijonas Šukšta, three years - from 1995 to 1998 - Prof. Habil. Dr. Rimantas Kačianauskas, one year - from 1998 to 1999 - Dr., Assoc. Prof. K. Vislavičius, two years from 1999 to 2001 - Dr., Assoc. Prof. Stanislav Stupak, eleven years from 2001 to 2012 - Habil. Dr. Prof. Rimantas Kačianauskas, from 2012 to 2013 - Dr., Assoc. Prof. Stanislav Stupak.

 

However, it is difficult to ascertain the real origin-time of the Department of Engineering mechanics. The department under this name appeared in contemporary Vilnius Technical University, in the Center of Fundamental Sciences, after division of department of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics into two parts. This predecessor always has been a twofold department: half of staff was involved in teaching of engineering mechanics, while others taught subjects of fundamental informatics, programming, and even computational mathematics. Engineering mechanics was taught also in former departments: starting from 1960 – in the department of Applied Mechanics of contemporary Vilnius Evening Faculty of Kaunas Polytechnic Institute, later on from 1961 – in department of Mechanics/Mathematics of Vilnius Civil Engineering Institute. Finally, part of this department became the department of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics. Thus, the origin of department can be traced to the 1960s. Professor D. Maciulevičius guided the departments that taught engineering mechanics in 1962-1990. Namely under his guidance all the engineering mechanics teaching traditions were established in our high-school. Later the department was guided by associate professors A. Čiučelis and J. Kasnauskas. From 1995 the head of department is professor R.B. Under his guidance the department began teaching the subjects of analysis of deformable structures via finite element methods (at bachelor, master and doctoral levels). These subjects are tightly connected to the informational/programming technologies, therefore department parallel to engineering mechanics and finite element methods teaches also, as in times of department of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, the subjects on programming (procedural and object-oriented programming in FORTRAN, C++, Java), and on the basics of packages of mathematical software.

 

Since the end of 2011 professor R. Belevičius became Dean of the Faculty of Fundamental Sciences and continued its duties as Head of the Department. From September of 2012 to August 2013 Assoc. Prof. D. Šešok has become a Head of Theoretical Mechanics Department. From September of 2013 to January 2014 Assoc. Prof. S. Stupak temporarily performs the duties of the Head of Engineering Mechanics Department.