Announcement and Call for Abstracts 

              MINISYMPOSIUM ON COMPUTATIONAL FAILURE MECHANICS

 To be held at the Fifth U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics 
 Wednesday-Friday, August 4-6, 1999, University of Colorado at Boulder, CO, USA 

 Symposium Organizers:  F. Armero, P. Steinmann, H. L. Schreyer and K. Willam  

During this last decade, there have been important advances regarding the 
characterization of the final stages of the deformation of materials.
However, many theoretical and computational challenges remain open to a large 
extent in the analysis and numerical simulation of the failure of solids
and structures.  The goal of this MiniSymposium is to provide a forum for the 
presentation and discussion of the different approaches to handle these problems. 

Contributions are solicited in the following areas:
 
    Damage and plasticity models for failure prediction.
    Mathematical characterization of strain localization in inelastic materials. 
    Regularization techniques including: rate dependent, nonlocal, micropolar
        and higher-gradient continuum theories.
    Discontinuous and decohesive approaches.
    Numerical simulation of discrete fracture and fragmentation.
    Finite elements incorporating  singularities.
    Adaptive finite element techniques for the  resolution of  failure.
    Failure analysis using meshfree methods.
    Characterization of failure in coupled settings 
       (adiabatic shear banding and porous media).
    Failure and collapse in dynamic and impact problems.
    Failure at micro-, meso- and macro-scales, and its multi-scale computational
        treatment.
    Probabilistic aspects of failure and their numerical implementation.
    Integration algorithms for softening plasticity/damage. 
 
Submission Instructions:
 
If you are interested in contributing to this MiniSymposium, please submit a 
one-page abstract of up to 400 words by e-mail to P. Steinmann (European contributions) 
or F. Armero (US and elsewhere contributions) as listed below by November 16, 1998.
Abstracts sent by Fax or regular mail will not be considered.

Abstracts may be submitted in one of three forms:  (1) plain text,   
(2) TeX source compatible with the Plain TeX format, or (3) Word 6 or 7 document 
in Rich Text Format (RTF).  Please  do not  include figures or graphics.
Avoid equations in title or text.  Greek letters are acceptable if 
the abstract is submitted in TeX or Word.  For samples of forms (1) and (2) 
please follow the links in 

        http://civil.colorado.edu/usnccm99/Abstracts.d/Information.html  

If the abstract is co-authored it must identify the e-mail of the corresponding 
author.  All subsequent correspondence will take place by e-mail.
Abstracts deemed to fit the scope and objectives of the Symposium will be
communicated to the Congress organizers by January 15, 1999, and
notification of acceptance will be given by e-mail to the corresponding author.

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.  
Although there will be no Congress Proceedings, papers presented at
the MiniSymposium will be due August 4, 1999 for publication
in a special issue of the International Journal of Solids and Structures, 
upon acceptance after passing the review process.

MiniSymposium Organizer Addresses:

 Professor Francisco Armero                       Professor Dr.-Ing. Paul Steinmann 
 CEE Department                                   Lehrstuhl fur Technische Mechanik 
 University of California at Berkeley             Universitat Kaiserslautern 
 713 Davis Hall                                   Erwin-Schrodinger Str.
 Berkeley, CA 94720-1710, USA                     D-67663 Kaiserslautern
 Ph: (510) 643-0813, Fax:-8928                    Tel:++49-(0631) 205-2419, Fax:-2128
 armero@ce.berkeley.edu                           ps@rhrk.uni-kl.de

 Professor Howard L. Schreyer                     Professor Kaspar Willam      
 Dept. of Mechanical Engineering                  CEAE Department   
 University of New Mexico                         University of Colorado at Boulder      
 Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA                       Boulder, CO 80309-0428, USA    
 Ph: (505) 277-8667, Fax:-1571                    Tel: (303) 492-7011, Fax:-7317   
 schreyer@slider.unm.edu                          willam@bechtel.colorado.edu   

Congress Program and Registration Information:
 
Posted at: http://civil.colorado.edu/usnccm99