Announcement and call for abstracts for the

                            MiniSymposium on

                     PROGRESS IN DAMAGE MECHANICS

    To be held at the 5th US Nac. Congress on Computational Mechanics
      August 4-6, 1999, University of Colorado at Boulder, CO, USA.

       Symposium organizers: I.Carol, J.W.Ju and G.Z.Voyiadjis


Motivation and topics of interest:
---------------------------------
In recent years, material models based on Damage Mechanics are becoming
increasingly popular, not only in the academic world, but also as part of
general Finite Element codes used for practical applications.
In order to to represent realistic material bechavior, damage is often combined
with plasticty, viscoelasticity or other rheological models.
However, even in the simplest context of elastic degradation, the formulation
of damage is intrinsically more complex than other more traditional approaches,
and the general state of development much less advanced.
Most formulations of damage proposed so far are only isotropic, with only isolated
incursions in the vast domain of anisotropy. Stiffness recovery, which is also a
must for a realistic description of most damaging materials, exhibits a number of
theoretical and practical aspects largely unsolved, especially in connection
with anisotropic damage. Localization theory based on acoustic tensor
traditional in plasticity, has been applied to isotropic damage but remains
practically unexplored for anisotropic degradation, let alone for combinations
of damage and plasticity or viscoplasticity. The need is also there to address
the kinematics of damage within the context of a consistent thermodynamic
theory. A last but important area that may be the key to progress in most of
the aspects mentioned before is the micromechanics of cracks and voids, their
physics and interactions.

In the context of all these open questions, the main purpose of this minisymposium
is to provide a forum for presentation and discussion of latest developements
and applications of Damage Mechanics to Engineering Materials.
An orientative list of topics is the following:

-Micromechanics and physics of microcracks and microvoids
-Theoretical aspects of damage theory
-Anisotropic degradation
-Kinematics of damage
-Stiffness recovery in anisotropically degraded solids
-Combinations of damage and plasticity, viscoelasticity or viscoplasticity.
-Localization analysis at constitutive and FE levels.
-Numerical implementation
-Applications
-Experimental damage mechanics and verification of numerical models
-Other topics related to Progress in Damage Mechanics.

Format of the minisimposium:
---------------------------
The symposium is aimed at a duration of three sessions. It will be opened with a

Keynote lecture by Prof. Dusan Kajcinovic, and will include a number of
invited presentations from authors from Europe, USA and the Far East, including
the three organizers. There will be also some time allocated for a few
contributed papers.

Publication and instruction for submission:
-------------------------------------------
The only publication due at the time of the conference is an abstract of the
presentation. The organizers are trying to arrange the publication of selected
papers from the minisymposium in a special issue of a well-known journal in the
field.
Those interested, please send a draft version of their abstract, by e-mail
by Dec. 15, 1998 to any of the organizers. Length of the abstract must be one
page, max. 400 words. Files may be plain ASCII, Latex or Word.
Abstracts accepted will be notified by e-mail by Jan 15, 1999.
A final version for inclusion in the printed book of Abstracts may be
submitted before May 15, 1999.  This final form is to be sent directly to the
Congress e-mail address following the instructions posted on the Web site.

Addresses of the organizers:
---------------------------
Dr. I. Carol               Dr. J.W. Ju                Dr. G.Z. Voyiadjis
ETSECCPB-UPC               Dept. Civil & Env.Eng.     Dept. Civil & Env.Eng.
Jordi Girona 1-3, Edif.D2  Univ. of California, L.A.  Louisiana State Univ.
E-08034 Barcelona, Spain   Los Angeles, CA 90095      Baton Rouge, LA 70803
tel     +(34)93-401-6509   tel     (310)206-1751      tel (225)388-8668
fax     +(34)93-401-6504   fax     (310)267-2283      fax (225)288-8652
carol@etseccpb.upc.es      juj@seas.ucla.edu          cegzv1@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu