Intended as a first introduction to the micromechanics of porous media, this book entitled "Microporomechanics" deals with the mechanics and physics of multiphase porous materials at nano and micro scales. It is composed of a logical and didactic build up from fundamental concepts to state-of-the-art theories. It features four parts: following a brief introduction to the mathematical rules for upscaling operations, the first part deals with the homogenization of transport properties of porous media within the context of asymptotic expansion techniques. The second part deals with linear microporomechanics, and introduces linear mean-field theories based on the concept of a representative elementary volume for the homogenization of poroelastic properties of porous materials. The third part is devoted to Eshelby's problem of ellipsoidal inclusions, on which much of the micromechanics techniques are based, and illustrates its application to linear diffusion and microporoelasticity. Finally, the fourth part extends the analysis to microporo-in-elasticity, that is the nonlinear homogenization of a large range of frequently encountered porous material behaviors, namely, strength homogenization, nonsaturated microporomechanics, microporoplasticity and microporofracture and microporodamage theory.
About the Author: Luc Dormieux is a professor at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, specialising in the mechanics of porous environments. In 2002 he edited a special issue of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, and is about to publish (16/10/2005) a book joint-edited with Franz-Josef Ulm entitled "Applied Micromechanics of Porous Materials", to be part of Springer-Verlag's CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences Series.

Djimedo Kondo is a professor at the Lille University of Science and Technology, specialising in the mechanical reliability of materials and structures & geomechanics. He has authored over 20 journal papers.

Franz-Josef Ulm is an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He specialises in the durability mechanics of engineering materials and structures, computational mechanics, bio-chemo-poromechanics, & high performance composite materials. He sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics. He has recently co-authored a book with Luc Dormieux (see above) and co-authored the 2 volume "Mechanics and Durability of Solids" with Olivier Coussy in 2001.