Society for Experimental Mechanics


Society for Experimental Mechanics is a professional organization for engineers and scientists studying the design and implementation of experiments to characterize materials, structures, and systems. Formed in 1943 as the Society for Experimental Stress Analysis, early work focused on methods such as photoelasticity and strain gages. Society historical records refer to the society as SESA through the 1984 Fall SESA meeting in Milwaukee, WI and start referring the society as SEM with the 1985 Spring SEM meeting in Las Vegas, NV. The society has expanded to include topics including modal analysis, digital image correlation, Split Hopkinson pressure bar, Residual stress, and biomaterials.

Technical Divisions

The society comprises seventeen technical divisions that program sessions at either the SEM Annual Conference or IMAC Conference, and develop content for publications:
SEM publishes proceedings volume from the SEM Annual Conference and IMAC Conference with its publishing partner Springer Science+Business Media.
SEM-published journals include: