In the field of nonlinear mechanics, many challenging problems (e.g. plasticity, contact, masonry structures, nonlinear membranes) turn out to be expressible as conic programs. In general, such problems are non-smooth in nature (plasticity condition, unilateral condition, etc.), which makes their numerical resolution through standard Newton methods quite difficult. Their formulation as conic programs alleviates this difficulty since large-scale conic optimization problems can now be solved in a very robust and efficient manner, thanks to the development of dedicated interior-point algorithms. In this contribution, we review old and novel formulations of various non-smooth mechanics problems including associated plasticity with nonlinear hardening, nonlinear membranes, minimal crack surfaces and visco-plastic fluid flows.