The
Sixth U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics
(USNCCM VI), chaired by Gregory Hulbert of University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, was held in Dearborn, Michigan July
31 - August 4, 2001. Since the first USNCCM, held in 1991,
the Congress has continued to grow and has developed into
an international event, with participation from Europe,
South America and the Pacific Rim.
The
6th Congress continued these traditions. More than 820 people
attended the USNCCM VI, with participants from more than
30 countries. Up to 19 parallel technical sessions were
offered during the three days of the Congress. There were
153 technical sessions distributed amongst 52 minisymposia.
Wing
Kam Liu opened the Congress with the plenary lecture "Multiple
Scale Meshfree Simulation Methods." Eugenio Onate presented
the plenary lecture, "Possibilities of Finite Calculus
in Computational Mechanics." The plenary lecture, "Shell
Structures - The Challenge of the Third Dimension,"
was delivered by Ekkehard Ramm. "Parallel Finite Element
Method Using Multi-Sited Computers Worldwide," was
the plenary lecture presented by Genki Yagawa. The plenary
lectures concluded with Franco Brezzi offering "Discontinuous
Galerkin Treatment of Diffusive Terms."
The
short course on "Verification and Validation in Computational
Mechanics," taught by William Oberkampf, was a sellout,
with 40 people attending this pre-Congress event. The post-Congress
short courses comprised "Meshless Particle Methods,"
presented by Wing Kam Liu, J. S. Chen, and Hirohisa Noguchi,
and "Design Optimization," presented by Zafer
Gurdal and Uwe Schramm. The post-Congress event attracted
more than 60 registrants.
Following
the successful model started at the USNCCM V, the Sixth
Congress expanded the student and young investigator fellowship
program. Krishna Garikipati had the difficult task of selecting
25 students and 10 young investigators to receive these
awards from the 75 applicants. That 219 students were registered
for the Congress bodes well for the future strength of computational
mechanics.
Many
people contributed to the success of the Congress, including
the minisymposia organizers and the Congress presenters.
Special thanks are offered to the following people for their
extraordinary contributions: Len Schwer, for organizing
the Verification and Validation short course and the well
received exhibitor booths; Ren-Jye Yang for organizing the
post-Congress short course on Design Optimization; Krishna
Garikipati, for administering the fellowship program; Karl
Grosh for assisting wit the audio-visual arrangements; J.S.
Chen, as technical program co-chair; Noboru Kikuchi as technical
program co-chair. Finally, the financial support of Altair
Engineering, Inc. and Toyota Motor Corporation is gratefully
acknowledged.
Planning
and organization efforts are underway for the 7th U.S. National
Congress on Computational Mechanics (USNCCM 7). The main
objective for the USNCCM is to bring together the diverse
communities that are active in computational mechanics and
to promote interactions between government, academia and
industry. The USNCCM 7, to be hosted by Sandia National
Laboratories in 2003 (Chaired by Thomas Bickel), will be
the gateway to the latest developments in computational
mechanics for a broad array of topics ranging from advances
in nanotechnology to numerical methods, multi-physics problems
in science and engineering, and high-performance computing.
Complete details about the USNCCM 7 may be found on the
web at http://www.esc.sandia.gov/usnccm.html.
The
Sixth World Congress on Computational Mechanics (WCCMVI)
and Asia-Pacific Congress on Computational Mechanics'04
are combined and to be held in Beijing, Capital of P. R.
China, in September of 2004. Professor Mingwu Yuan (yuanmw@pku.edu.cn)
of Peking University is the General Chairman of the Organizing
Committee. Planning of WCCM VI is underway and several committees
are being established, including invitations of Plenary
and Keynote Lectures. USACM has been invited to work closely
with WCCM VI. If you are willing to contribute to this important
Congress, I shall be happy to forward your idea to Professor
Yuan.
This
USACM Verification and Validation Specialty Committee, chaired
by Len Schwer, has achieved one of its original objectives:
to become an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
approved standards committee.
The
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Council
on Codes and Standards, at their meeting of 21 Sep 01, endorsed
the V&V Committee's Charter:
To
develop standards for assessing the correctness and credibility
of modeling and simulation in computational solid mechanics.
The
Committee reports to the ASME Board on Performance Test
Codes (PTC) and the Committee's official title is:
PTC
60 Committee on Verification and Validation in Computational
Solid Mechanics
The
ASME web site for the Committee is
www.asme.org/cns/departments/performance/public/ptc60/
but the more information about the Committee is currently
available via the USACM web site:
www.usacm.org/vnvcsm/
The
ICMM (Integration on Computational Mechanics and Manufacturing)
committee, chaired by Jian Cao of Northwestern University,
intends to create a common interaction platform among computational
mechanics basic research scientists, manufacturing and product
engineers, and application practitioners.
On September
5-7, 2001, the National Science Foundation and USACM sponsored
a two-day workshop entitled "Workshop on Composite
Sheet Forming" held at the University of Massachusetts
- Lowell. The workshop was attended by 35 representatives
from 1 material supplier, 4 commercial software companies,
2 government agencies, 5 other private companies and 14
universities. The participation was international with nearly
30% of the attendees from Europe and Asia. In addition,
10 graduate students from University of Massachusetts -
Lowell and Northwestern University attended the workshop
to enrich their professional experience.
Over
the course of the two-day workshop, four keynotes in the
areas of materials testing (Andrew Long - Univ. of Nottingham),
numerical simulation (Noboru Kikuchi - Univ. of Michigan,
Ann Arbor), stamping applications (Martyn Wakeman, Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology), and verification and validation
(Len Schwer, Schwer Associates) were given, together with
21 other short presentations.
The
workshop organizers and attendees alike share the view that
the event had succeeded in its objectives of exchanging
information and establishing a base for organizing future
benchmark tests. The workshop report is available at
http://www.mech.northwestern.edu/fac/cao/nsfworkshop
Future
workshops and conference gatherings to continue this effort
were highly recommended. The first of these is likely to
take place at the 5th International European Scientific
Association for Material Forming Conference on Material
Forming in Kraków, Poland, in April 2002, where there
will be a dedicated symposium on Composites Forming Processes
(details can be found at http://esaform.cma.fr/events/annconf2002.html)
to discuss the benchmark results of material testing. The
7th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics at
Albuquerque, New Mexico, from July 27 - August 1, 2003,
is considered to be a good choice for the following discussion
on the results of benchmarking in numerical simulations.
The
Committee on Meshfree Methods (CMM), chaired by J. S. Chen
of UCLA, has developed a web page (http://www.usacm.org/MeshFree)
to foster the research, development and application of meshfree
methods. In addition to the pages describing related background,
events, resources, and members information, a Preprint Server
has been developed to provide an interface for the user
to submit and/or download meshfree methods related preprints.
The CMM web site is developed and maintained by Dr. Tom
Voth of Sandia National Laboratories.
The Materials Modeling technical committee of USACM (CAMM),
chaired by Professor Somnath Ghosh, is actively trying to
(a) establish a link between computational mechanics and
computational materials science, (b) identify similar activities
in other groups and join with them in promoting themes of
common interest, © act as a liaison between Computational
Mechanics developers and Materials and applications industry
and provide a forum to assess the needs of the materials
industry and establish directions for researchers developing
novel modeling/design tools and implementation in commercial
software. The committee sponsored 3 symposia on (i)
Computational Mechanics of Heterogeneous
Materials: Modeling, Simulation, and Experimental Verification,
(ii) Numerical Simulation of Plasmas and (iii) Phase Transformation
and Microstructure Evolution,
at the 2001 USNCCM in Dearborn, MI. The symposia
involved researchers, outside of the conventional `Computational
Mechanics' community, e.g. from Materials Science &
Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Electrical
Engineering. In February 2002, the committee co-sponsored
an Army Research Office sponsored workshop on Analysis
and Design of New Engineered Materials and Systems with
Applications to identify new research
directions concerning engineered materials and systems.
This successful workshop was attended by researchers from
universities, national laboratories, Army Research laboratories,
industry and other government organizations. CAMM is cosponsoring
the 2004 Numerical Methods In Industrial
Forming Processes (NUMIFORM),
a reputed international conference that will provide a platform
for demonstrating the important role of Computational Mechanics
in the integration of materials with manufacturing.
Since
the announcement of the National Nanotechnology Initiative
(NNI) in early 2000, nanotechnology has become a research
focus area in many academic disciplines. There have been
exciting developments in nanoscale science over the last
two decades since the invention of STM in 1981. However,
most of the researches during 1980-2000 can be described
as nanoscience rather than nanoengineering, since they are
mainly focused on nanoscale materials and proof-of-concept
demonstrations of novel nanoscale devices. These researches
are mainly performed in Physics, Chemistry and Materials
Science communities. However, successful industrial applications
of nanotechnology will require a technological innovation
in nanosystems integration.
Nanostructure patterning
and self-assembly processes
are emerging as promising enabling technology to achieve
this goal. USACM has organized a Nanotechnology Committee
to address the key modeling issues of computational mechanics
in nanoscale patterning technology. KJ Cho at Stanford University
chairs the Nanotech Committee, and Deepak Srivastava at
NASA Ames Research Center is serving as a co-chair. Rod
Ruoff and Wing Kam Liu at Northwestern University are serving
as the committee members, and the Committee plans to invite
more members from nanotech industry and investment community.
The Committee envisions its role as to facilitate and guide
the development of computational nanomechanics modeling
methods into CAD tools for nanosystem design applications.
The
Texas Student Chapter of USACM was established in Spring
2000 and has since reached a total membership of 19 graduate
students and post-doctorate fellows from the Colleges of
Engineering and Natural Sciences of The University of Texas
at Austin. For the 2001-2002 term, Albert Romkes and Jennifer
Proft were elected as the Chapter's President and Vice-President,
respectively. Prof. J. Tinsley Oden is the acting Faculty
Advisor to the Student Chapter, which is a registered student
organization at The University of Texas at Austin.
The
Student Chapter has primarily organized meetings with invited
guests from both academia and industry. Typically these
meetings involve a short and conceptual presentation by
the invited speakers on such topics as their professional
career, research and teaching experience, and views on future
developments within the field of computational mechanics
itself. The informal format of the meeting following the
presentation is designed to encourage open discussion between
the guest and the students.
Recently,
Dr. Armando Duarte from the Texas office of Altair Engineering
in Austin was guest speaker for a December 12 luncheon meeting
organized by the Student Chapter. Dr. Duarte discussed his
motivations for choosing a career in the industrial sector,
such as the potential impact on design improvements of real-world
applications this company explores.
On
February 8, 2002, the Chapter invited Prof. Franco Brezzi
from the University of Pavia, Italy, to participate in a
luncheon meeting.
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Prof. Brezzi shared some of his experiences as a world-renowned
scientist in the field of applied mathematics, and
in particular, how he was drawn into numerical analysis
as a career.
These
two examples clearly demonstrate the international
character of invited guests and the broad range of
their professional background: from academia to industry.
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For
all involved, the activities over the past two years have
been a positive experience, resulting in a strengthened
membership and a growing evolvement of the Chapter's activities.
The Texas Student Chapter hopes that this initiative will
encourage the establishments of more USACM Student Chapters
throughout the United States, thus fostering the growth
of computational mechanics in general.
Submitted
by Wing Kam Liu, President of USACM (w-liu@northwestern.edu)
