Virtual prototyping is a cornerstone in modern product development cycles: It accelerates the design process, reduces costs and improves product performance and quality. Highly flexible slender structures like yarns, cables, hoses or ropes are essential parts of high-performance engineering systems. The complex response of such structures in real operational conditions is far beyond the capabilities of current virtual prototyping tools. There is a pressing need for a new generation of young scientists capable of solving fundamental problems related to slender structures and transferring results to applications. THREAD addresses the mechanical modelling, mathematical formulations and numerical methods for highly flexible slender structures. It brings mechanical engineers and mathematicians together around major challenges in industrial applications and open-source simulation software development. It establishes an innovative modelling chain starting from detailed 3D modelling and experimental work to build validated 1D nonlinear rod models, which are then brought to a system-level simulation thanks to the outstanding numerical properties of the developed algorithms. This holistic approach combines advanced concepts in experimental and theoretical structural mechanics, non-smooth dynamics, computational geometry, discretisation methods and geometric numerical integration and will enable the next generation of virtual prototyping. The ESRs will receive comprehensive local and network-wide training covering state-of-the-art research topics as well as valuable transferable skills. They will benefit from close cooperation with twelve industrial partner organisations implementing a comprehensive programme of research secondments and contributing their experience. As a main objective of THREAD, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral training boosts the career development of young researchers and supports them to solve future challenges.

The main goals of the EffectFact proposal are a) to advance pure and applied mathematics in the area of factorisation techniques, Wiener-Hopf and Riemann-Hilbert problems and related numerical techniques to solve time dependent boundary value problems in complex discrete and continuous domains; b) to utilize the developed techniques to solve challenging problems from: i) biomechanics (DNA replication), ii) medicine (surgical resection and dentistry), iii) metamaterials (acoustic and gyro-elastic), iv) AI (machine learning), v) environmental and civil engineering (with a focus on earthquake and coastal defences) and, in doing so, c) to establish a new, sustainable, EU-centred network of researchers from different sectors and disciplines, united by their dedication to furthering the projects techniques and results, while transferring this knowledge, best practice and creating new training opportunities for EU researchers. The EffectFact consists of 24 Partners: 9 Academic Institutions from the EU (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland), 6 Universities from the AC (Georgia, Israel, Norway and Ukraine); 8 highly innovative SMEs adopting completely different R&D strategies (UK, Switzerland, France, Slovenia, Israel, Slovakia); 1 Academic Partners from the TCs (China). All EffectFact goals align with the RISE Objectives, establishing a unique consortium to fill gaps in several scientific disciplines, impacting H2020 priorities and Horizon Europe missions. These problems could not be solved independently, requiring continuous feedback from analytic, applied and computational researchers from numerous disciplines. This diverse collaborative Network will forge interdisciplinary links within the EU, strengthen the access of EU academics and SME’s to international research, lead to tangible and impactful results, while building a strong base of robust, independent researchers capable of furthering the aims of EffectFact long into the future.