Newsletter 1/2021

Editorial
Dear readers,
In the last somewhat sleepy half year, the staff of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, CAS worked on a number of interesting tasks. Some of them are covered here in the issue of the newsletter you are holding.
An interesting project that falls within the activities of the AV21 Strategy program “City as a Laboratory of Change: Buildings, Cultural Heritage and Environment for Safe and Valuable Life“ is the modelling of wind flow in urban areas. Two urban development models were selected for this purpose, one of which is historical. It will be used to monitor the flow of wind in terms of its possible impact on the spread of fires that have affected life in the city in the past.
At its detached workplace in Telč, ITAM uses its unique TORATOM tomographic device with adjustable geometry, allowing for the examination of a wide range of objects, whether historical artifacts or materials under load. Researchers from the Department of Biomechanics, together with the Department of Monument Care, have made further improvements to this device and designed an additional module that improves imaging of the interior of larger objects.
Bernard beer is objectively a high quality drink. It is produced at a family brewery in Humpolec, whose chimney towers above the city and the surrounding landscape. Engineers from Excon a.s. designed a lookout tower whose steel lattice structure and stairs encases the chimney. The problem, however, was that the lookout tower vibrated in the wind. Researchers from the Department of Dynamics and Aerodynamics designed a special damper that absorbs the vibrations. But more in the newsletter.
This summer reading will, hopefully, once again be informative...

Stanislav Pospíšil, director of ITAM CAS