In recent years extensive research has been performed in numerical modelling of objects and visualization for several distinct areas of science, namely, computer sciences, engineering, mathematics, medicine and physics. A major application of numerical modelling of objects and visualization is in biomedicine. For instance, it is possible to use computational procedures from medical imaging data to build numerical models and visualize human organs. These procedures can have different goals, such as shape reconstruction, segmentation, motion and deformation analyses, registration, simulation, visualization, etc.

The main goal of the proposed Minisymposium is to bring together researchers involved in the related fields (Image Acquisition, Image Analysis, Image Segmentation, Objects Tracking, Objects Matching, Shape Reconstruction, Motion and Deformation Analysis, Medical Imaging, Scientific Visualization, Simulation, Software Development, Grid Computing, etc.), in order to set the major lines of development for the near future.

The proposed Minisymposium will consist of researchers representing various fields related to Biomechanics, Biomedical Engineering, Computational Vision, Computer Graphics, Computational Mechanics, Mathematics, Medical Imaging, Scientific Visualization, Statistics, etc. The Minisymposium endeavors to make a contribution to achieving better solutions for more realistic computational “living” models, and attempts to establish a bridge between clinicians and researchers from these diverse fields.

Key words:  Biomechanics, Soft Tissues, Constitutive models.

Computational Biomechanics is a field that is expanding and developing at remarkable speed. One of the most promising subjects under development is the numerical simulation applied to living organs, mainly the biomechanical behaviour of tissues and cells. However, for its success, several research topics should be considered like, image processing and analysis, optimization, geometric modelling, numerical modelling, material modelling, material constitutive laws. Experimental methodologies combined with numerical methods, and their applications on real environments must be addressed. To carry out successfully high-level tasks of Computational Biomechanics, new algorithms have to be continually developed or improved and their outputs must be evaluated by expert users, such as physiologists as medical doctors. This symposium should be a good opportunity for participants to refine their ideas for future work and to establish possible cooperation.

It aims to include, but is not limited to, the computational, mathematical and physical treatment of problems such as

• Computational biomechanics of hard and soft tissues (bone, skin, vessels, ligaments, tendons, muscles, etc.) and cells.
• Numerical methods applied to Biomechanics (FE and Meshless methods)
• Modelling of biological tissues, cells and organs.
• Tissue regeneration, growth and remodelling
• Biofluid mechanics
• Coupled Computational-Experimental Biomechanics. Inverse and in vivo parameter estimation
• Image processing and analysis applied to biomechanics and mechanobiology.
• Multi-scale modelling of tissues, cells and organs.
• Grid Computing and high performance computing for biomechanics of tissues, cells and organs.

The mechanics of biological tissues is a rapidly growing area of research which combines diverse disciplines such as biology, medicine, mechanics, physics, motion science or computational mathematics.

Therefore, the main goal of this Mini-Symposium is to present and discuss the current experimental and computational focus of research in the field of biological tissues. Thereby, we focus on both passive and active tissue mechanics at the molecular, cellular, tissue and the organ level. In doing so this Mini-Symposium intends to provide a deeper understanding of tissue structure and related function by focusing on biological features such as load transfer mechanisms, mechanobiology, intra- and extracellular chemical events, action potential generation/propagation, just to name a few. Consequently, contributions using experimental, structural, mechanical or computational approaches are particularly welcome.

This Mini-Symposium focuses on research outcomes on computational and experimental studies that aim on the description of growth and remodelling effects in living tissues. From micro level considering cell growth and cell division to macro level observing the reorganisation and changes on material and growth behaviour, the modelling of growth presents a scientific challenge not only due to the complexity of diverse processes that take place in living tissues but also on the experimental method at different length scales that are essential for identifying material characteristics. Therefore, we invite contributions focusing on growth and remodelling mechanisms across different length scales, both, in modelling and experiment. As a consequence, the Mini-Symposium aims to bring together scientists from different fields such as biology, medicine, mathematics or mechanics to exchange novel approaches in experiment and modelling.

Realistic simulations, exploiting computational methods as structural FEA, FSI or CFD, have proved their effectiveness to optimize the design of minimally-invasive cardiovascular devices or to support the surgical procedure planning. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to enhance the reliability and the use of such simulations in the clinical practice.

This mini-symposium would provide a meeting point for physicians, device manufactures, and (academic or industrial) engineers, who are investigating, through numerical simulations, the cardiovascular system with a particular focus on the treatment of endovascular and heart valve diseases.

Topics can include, but are not limited to, patient-specific analyses of hemodynamics, structural and/or fluid mechanics in percutaneous coronary or peripheral interventions such as stenting, mathematical and computational methods applied to the development and optimization of novel vascular and heart valve prostheses. 

While the primary aim of the mini-symposium is to report on computational mechanics, related topics such as advanced experimental methods providing proper data for validation of computational models will be also welcome.

The submission of patient-specific analyses addressing real clinical cases and based on advanced medical image analysis is also encouraged.

This minisymposium aims to bring together computer modeling experts in the fields of cardiovascular and pulmonary biomechanics. Both theoretical and applied work will be showcased. Our goal is to provide a forum for discussion and exchange of ideas that will lead to the development of more realistic physical and physiological models, and their inclusion in large-scale simulations.
Topics include - but are not limited to - computational methods and models for:

- Fluid-structure interaction in cardiovascular and respiratory mechanics
- Computational methods for medical device modeling and performance evaluation
- Parameter estimation & inverse problems in cardiovascular mechanics
- Computer methods for disease research and surgical planning
- Cardiovascular tissue growth and remodelling
- Flow-induced physiological changes in blood - hemolysis, thrombosis, cell adhesion
- Flow and transport in tissues and scaffolds.
- System level modeling techniques for cardiovascular and pulmonary circulation
- Flow and transport in lungs
- Turbulent flows of non-Newtonian liquids
- Data visualization specific to complex fluids

The aim of the mini-symposium is to focus on the inherent multiscale nature of the interplay between mechanics and biology and its elucidation through modeling. It is now established that computational tools are indispensable to augment experimental techniques for the analysis of complex biosystems and increase the success rates of clinical interventions and therapeutic effectiveness. Biological systems are among the most complex physical systems, with phenomena that can only be explained considering the enormous range of length and time scales involved. At the atomistic level, the dynamics of biomolecules is stochastic and poses significant computational challenges. At the cellular level, a multitude of molecular entities, many of which unidentified, interact and organize in space and time, from which nonequilibrium physiological processes emerge at the tissue and organ levels. While vast knowledge is accumulating for any given biological system, establishing quantitative relations between systems defined at different scales requires an integrative approach such as multiscale modeling. Topics of interest in this minisymposium include novel computational techniques and/or modeling results that link at least two spatial or temporal scales which explain the role of mechanics in biological phenomena.

Multiphysics problems arise naturally in biomedical applications which often require the solution to coupled processes. The numerical simulation of coupled problems has received much attention in recent years but still remains a challenge in mathematical and computational sciences. Understanding the interaction between different physical phenomena in human body is important for the understanding of the normal function and prevention of damage and/or catastrophic events. It also plays an important role in making decisions about medical treatment. Fluid–structure interaction models (e.g., valvular modeling), fluid–porous medium interaction models (e.g, hemodynamics and tissue modeling), as well as the transport problems (e.g., transport of drugs and imaging agents) are widely used to describe different healthy or pathological medical conditions.

A great amount of effort is put towards the development of numerical methods for coupled problems, due to their complex multiphysics nature and often strong nonlinearity. This minisymposium focuses on the mathematical models, numerical methods, and computational techniques used for solving coupled
problems in biomedical applications. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Fluid-structure interaction;
• Porous medium flow;
• Partitioned and monolithic methods for coupled problems;
• Patient specific modeling;
• Validation and verification of numerical solvers.

Key words: safety, advanced analysis, materials structures and microstructures, damage, dynamics, mesh methods, meshless methods, numerical analysis, dynamic loadings, strain rate sensitivity, protective structures, constitutive modeling, biomechanics.

The Mini-Symposium attempts to gather researchers devoted to computational analysis and experimental studies of solids implemented in safety and biomechanics areas subjected to various complex loadings. The contributions will be focused on the following topics:

1. Constitutive description of materials subjected to complex loading conditions.
2. Mesh and meshless methods in analyses of materials and structures.
3. Protective structures against impact and blast loadings.
4. Biomechanical analysis of human body dummies in different dynamic loading conditions.
5. Models and modeling techniques of realistic human organs.

The Mini-Symposium is intended to present challenges and achievements in applications of theoretical, computational and experimental mechanics focused on biomechanical and safety issues.

Key words: bone, biomechanics, CT-data, verification, validation

The reliable numerical prediction of mechanobiological properties of bone and bone tissue provides an indispensable knowledge needed to forecast the elastic response and failure behavior of bones. Over the years an enormous effort has been invested in numerical methods and in verification and validation by in-vitro experiments to comprehend better the mechanics of the complex bone architecture. The consideration of all scales of bone tissue from the level of cell density and vitality, to the micro- and macro-architecture of trabecular and cortical bone spurred the use and advancement of multi-scale methods to predict reliably the bone quality and bone fracture risk of individuals. Furthermore, the knowledge obtained from numerical simulation provides a new quality of insight to improve further therapy concepts for widespread disease as osteoporosis or osteoarthritis.

This minisymposium aims at bringing together researchers from across the computational and experimental biomechanics community to discuss and exchange latest achievements in the field of bone mechanical research. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to aspects of modeling and analysis of bones and bone tissue across the scales, bone fracture, fatigue, bone remodeling and healing, computational and algorithmic aspects, model verification and validation by experiments, clinical aspects and patient-specific prediction, monitoring and prognosis.

Population balance modeling has received a remarkable amount of interest during the last years from both academic and industrial researchers due to its wide applications in diverse fields such as disease progression, understanding of biological systems, cancer and tumor growth, nanoparticles’ synthesis and chemical processing.

The aim of this minisymposium is to bring together researchers with different backgrounds interested in the framework of Population Balance Modeling, to allow the exchange of ideas across various fields that use population balances and to provide ideas for extension to more complex systems, new simulation tools and solutions based to mono and multivariate size distributions. Among the proposed topics are included (but are not limited to):

• Formulation, Identification and Solution of Population Balances
• Numerical methods for the solution of Population Balances with and without spatial dependence
• Novel applications (e.g. tumor growth)
• Multidimensionality for the improvement of population balance models
• Optimization and Control of population balance models for industrial applications

Aneurysms are abnormal, local dilatations of the arterial lumen and result from an often progressive degeneration of the vessel wall. Most frequently, they are observed in the aorta and cerebral arteries. Due to a sustained failure of natural autorepair mechanisms, they often enlarge over years and may eventually rupture, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. The risk of rupture is highly individual and many aneurysms effectively remain stable. Surgical or interventional treatment in turn is associated with a significant risk for the patient and should only be performed if an adverse outcome is expected. Clinical decisions thus always rely on the prognosis of the future evolution of a specific aneurysm.

Initiation and evolution of aneurysms are governed by a complex interplay of various factors: solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, biochemistry and biology both of the vascular wall and the blood. Initiation has been associated with unfavorable mechanical wall conditions and particular shear stress exposition. During the subsequent enlargement phase, the significantly altered vascular geometry in aneurysms results in altered mechanical wall stress and blood flow, the latter entailing changes in wall shear stress and often thrombotic lining of the wall. Via mechanobiological signaling cascades, these factors induce growth and remodeling processes, which lead either to stabilization of the aneurysm or rupture.

Over the last two decades, novel experimental and computational methods have contributed substantially to our understanding of these complex phenomena. Especially the coupling of biology and mechanics poses, however, a major methodological challenge for computational approaches on different scales. This minisymposium aims to provide a forum where researchers can present and compare their different approaches and discuss how to combine them in order to better understand and numerically represent the complex biomechanics and mechanobiology of aneurysms. In particular the minisymposium seeks to promote the exchange between researchers studying different kinds of aneurysms such as aortic and cerebral aneurysms. We warmly invite you to join us on Crete in the summer of 2016.

The numerical simulation of the full heart functioning is a challenging and fascinating task from the point of view of mathematical and numerical modeling, as well as of scientific computing. In this respect, a full integrated heart model represents a complex multiphysics problem, which is in turn composed of several cardiac submodels describing cardiac electrophysiology, mechanics and fluid dynamics. Each submodel exhibits a spatial and temporal multiscale behavior and poses significant mathematical, numerical and computational challenges requiring accurate modeling.

This minisymposium aims at gathering researchers and experts of several aspects related to the mathematical and numerical modeling of the heart. Topics may include, but are not limited to, coupled cardiac models, electrophysiology, mechanical activation, fluid dynamics of the heart, valve modeling, patient-specific and image-based simulations, mathematical and numerical modeling of the heart, as well as large-scale simulations and other computational aspects.

The aim of the mini-symposium is to focus on computer modeling of balance and hearing disorders. The (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) BPPV is the most common type of vertigo, influencing the quality of life to considerable percentage of population after the age of forty (25 out of 100 people are facing this problem after 40). The BPPV symptoms appear after angular movements of the head, leading to dizzines, nausea, imbalance and it is common for people with head injuries. The semicircular canals which are filled with fluid normally act to detect rotation via deflections of the sensory membraneous cupula. Biomechanical model of human semicircular canals (SSC) which considers the morphology of the organs and the composition of the biological tissues and their viscoelastic and mechanical properties should be developed for better diagnostics and therapy. Fluid-structure interaction problem with nonlinear constitutive laws of tissue of SSC are using for computer modeling.

The cochlea is the part of the inner ear where acoustic signals are transformed into neural pulses and then they are signaled to the brain. The normal function of the cochlea requires a full integration of mechanical, electrical, and chemical effects on the milli-, micro-, and nanometer scales. Numerical modelling of the cochlea and developing a multi-scale cochlea model is coupled by geometry of the cochlea, fluid coupling within the chambers of the cochlea, micromechanics within the organ of Corti at different positions along the cochlea.

Balance control computer model can describe multiple experimental conditions in one dataset by using nonlinearity (i.e. thresholding of sensory channels), which makes it the optimal choice to investigate the underlying pathophysiology of vestibular disorders. Topics of interest in this minisymposium include novel computational techniques and/or modeling results that link balance control model with computer model of semicircular canal and computer modelling of the cochlear microphonic signal which provide valuable diagnostic information and extracting sound vibration patterns.

The computational modeling of tumor growth has emerged as a promising tool, potentially contributing to better diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic approaches in clinical oncology. In the last few decades, a number of models and computational methods have been proposed, ranging from agent-based models to reaction-diffusion equations and phase-field theories. More recently, the mechanical aspects of tumor growth have begun to receive significant attention. Essential cell functions like migration, adhesion and differentiation can be controlled through purely mechanical means without altering the cell’s biochemical environment. At the tissue level, mechanical signals such as stress and extracellular matrix stiffness can regulate tissue development, homeostasis, and function. They also have been exploited in developing strategies to non-invasively diagnose different types of cancer. Continuum mechanics presents another intriguing line of study: the consideration of mechanical and chemical free energies, and their roles in controlling the growth of the tumor.

In this minisymposium, we invite contributions in the field of tumor growth modeling. Theoretical, computational, experimental, and collaborative studies of mechanical processes related to cancer growth, treatment or diagnosis are of interest.

The aim of this mini-symposium is to present the state of art of mathematical modeling and computational analysis in liver, other detoxifying organs. or organs of the digestive tract.

This comprises models at the molecular, cellular, intermediate tissue (e.g. in the liver: lobules, in intestine: intestinal crypts), whole organ and body level, as well as models linking some or even all of these levels.

Modeling methods can cover deterministic or stochastic models for molecular signaling, blood flow and transport models, agent-based models for individual cells organized within the microarchitecture of the organ, porous media / multiphase models. Methods and strategies to parameterize complex models and perform simulated sensitivity analyses are welcome.

It will be discussed on how image processing and analysis can be used to inform the spatial models on the micro and macro scale, how stepwise integration of models on single levels lead to multilevel models addressing important biological, pharmaceutical and clinical questions.

These include how molecular signals translate on the single cell level into cell cycle progression, and on the tissue level into growth or regrowth after damage.

This also includes metabolizing of drugs, drug induced tissue damage, and its consequences on the detoxification of the blood from metabolites that are otherwise highly toxic. 

Examples of how models can successfully guide in vivo experiments are particularly sought. 

The mechanical behavior of crystalline materials is controlled by their microstructure: it is determined by how defects, such as dislocations and cracks, interact with each other, with grain boundaries, precipitates and phases.

The aim of the minisymposium is to bring together researchers from various disciplines to discuss new insights into the mechanics of plasticity and failure of microstructures, and their interplay.

The topics include, but are not limited to:

• atomistic simulations
• dislocation plasticity
• crystal plasticity
• interaction between defects (dislocations, grain boundaries, twins)
• grain boundary sliding and migration
• competition between plasticity and fracture
• fracture/damage

Responses of civil engineering materials and structures to extreme loadings (mechanical, thermal, chemical, coupled or not, static or dynamic) are often complex and difficult to understand, especially because of the complex nature (heterogeneities, multi-scale influences, ageing, cracking) of the material and / or due to the large scale of the structures. It is then necessary to establish constant dialogues between the various relevant scales by experimental (including in-situ measurements on structure), numerical and analytical works. In this session will be presented the recent developments in these areas and their applications in the case of civil engineering materials and structures. Particular attention will be paid to modeling works confronted with experimental measurements.
 

Instabilities of materials and structures have important applications in engineering and science, and are often associated with material or structure failure. To safeguard structural integrity, it is important to identify possible instabilities and understand post-instability behaviour. Furthermore, in several instances, it may be possible to take advantage of instabilities, to improve the design of materials and structures. This Mini-Symposium is aimed at presenting state-of-the-art work on instability phenomena, with emphasis on computational methodologies, from a broad spectrum of applications in solid and structural mechanics. It is believed that the Mini-Symposium will enable the exchange of experience and develop ideas for further research in this important scientific field. 

Key words: Impact, crashworthiness, rigid body impact, impact of deformable bodies, collision, passive safety, occupant protection, accident reconstruction, automotive, aerospace, biomechanics, explicit finite element methods, meshless methods, computational solid mechanics.

The Mini-Symposium "Impact and Crash Mechanics" will gather together researchers from academia and industry working on new methods for impact and crash problems. This concerns theoretical developments and engineering applications from automotive, aerospace, civil, and naval engineering as well as from biomechanical and material sciences. Methodological aspects from finite element and meshless methods will be regarded as well as material modeling and optimization.

The natural heterogeneity of real materials structure influencing on distribution of material physicomechanical characteristics (PMC) is one of the factors determining character of destruction. The introduction  of the given factor in the equations of mechanics of a deformable solid is possible at use probabilistic laws of distribution PMC on volume of a considered design.

 There are problems where the fragmentation is mainly probabilistic process: for example, explosive destruction axisymmetric shells where character of blasting fragmentation are beforehand unknown. Determining influence of heterogeneity of material structure is shown as well in problems punching thin barrier, during so-called "petaling" barrier. In order that simulated process of a fragmentation reflected a real picture of behavior of the destroyed bodies, received in experiments, it is necessary to bring in casual distribution of initial deviations strength properties from rating value to PMC of a body (modeling of initial defective structures of a material).

The received results show an opportunity offered the probabilistic approach and a numerical technique to model process of natural crushing of elements of machine-building designs at intensive dynamic loadings. The created technique of the decision of problems of a fragmentation allows in the most full, from the physical point of view, to three-dimensional statement adequately to reproduce processes of crushing of solids at action of explosive and shock loadings.

Key words: Fictitious Domain, Overlapping Meshes, Computational Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics, Fluid-Structure Interaction Problems, Multi-Physics Problems.

Multi-domain, multi-material and multi-physics problems with interfaces can be severely limited by the use of conforming meshes when the interface geometry is highly complex or evolving in time. For instance, fluid-structure interaction problems with large deformations or free surface fluid problems with topological changes might render even recent algorithms for moving meshes (ALE- based algorithms) infeasible. Another challenging problem is the numerical modeling of flow and transport problems in porous media when discrete fracture and channel networks are involved. Similar geometric challenges are encountered in parameter studies and optimization problems with changing geometric domains.

To overcome the limitations imposed by the use of a single, conforming mesh, several discretization methods based on cut and composite meshes have been developed in recent years. Approaches such as the extended finite element method, fictitious domain methods, finite difference and volume schemes based on overlapping and embedded meshes, the cut finite element method, mortar elements, the immersed finite element method, and related approaches allow to impose boundary and interface conditions when the physical and computational domains do not coincide. The objective of this minisymposium is to present the latest advances and application areas for discretization methods for cut and composite meshes and to discuss theoretical and implementational challenges.

Key words: Mesh generation, mesh adaption, mesh quality, mesh optimization, anisotropic meshing.

Mesh generation and adaption is a key step in the application of the Finite Element Method to applied sciences and engineering. During the last decades a wide range of methods has been developed to generate and adapt meshes. However, the maturation of new numerical formulation and the advances in computer hardware have posed new requirements and challenges those classic methods cannot accomplish. Thus, the aim of this session is to bring together scientist and researchers interested in the development of new meshing technologies that best fit numerical simulation requirements. The topics of this session include, but are not restricted to, the following list:

• Triangular and tetrahedral mesh generation.
• Quadrilateral and hexahedral mesh generation.
• Surface meshing.
• Mesh refinement and adaption.
• Mesh optimization and quality improvement.
• Anisotropic meshing.
• Meshing and High Performance Computing.

Key words: Curved meshing, quality, validity, adaption, anisotropy, moving meshes.

In the last decades, the interest in developing high-order methods on unstructured meshes has been markedly increased. This interest has been prompted by the higher accuracy these methods provide when compared with low-order methods, for a fixed element size. To exploit these advantages, curved meshes that reproduce the curved domain boundaries have to be generated. However, several challenges have still to be solved to generate valid and highquality curved meshes in a fully automatic manner. Solving these challenges is mandatory to allow the adoption of high-order methods by the research and industrial communities.
To generate curved elements two main challenges have to be solved. First, the mesh has to be composed by elements that are the image of a reference element through a smooth and one-toone map with a smooth inverse (valid). That is, the elements should be smooth and cannot be tangled, inverted, or folded on other elements. Second, the elements have to approximate with the adequate accuracy both the curved domain boundary (e.g. CAD surfaces) and the solution (quality). There are other important challenges to be solved such as how to generate adapted,anisotropic, and moving meshes.
In this mini-symposium, we invite talks related with the generation of valid curved meshes for high-order methods with: approximated boundary representation, such as the iso-parametric versions of the continuous and Discontinuous Galerkin methods; and with exact boundary representation, such as the p-FEM, the iso-geometric analysis, and the NEFEM. In this framework, we invite talks in broad areas ranging from mesh validity and quality assessment, h-p adaption, anisotropy, moving meshes, geometry representations (B-splines, NURBS, Tsplines, subdivision surfaces, polynomials), approximation theory, to the generation of curvedmeshes for real industrial applications.

Key Words: additive manufacturing, 3D printing, Finite Element Method

In the past few years additive manufacturing (AM) has evolved to one of the most promising techniques for creating solid structures of virtually any shape based on digital models. AM (also named 3D-printing) is achieved by successively generating layers of material of different shapes and often also of varying material properties. Applications range across many fields in engineering, from non-load bearing design models for mere visualization, to parts under severe loads as in lightweight components for the automotive or aerospace industry. Furthermore, AM is used on a day-to-day basis in medical applications, e.g. to produce patient specific implants or even to print tissue. For an overview on applications, we refer to [1]. The vast impact of AM on economy and society is discussed e.g. in [2,3].

Until today, dozens of different AM processes have been suggested, see e.g. [4]. A large cluster of processes is formed by laser metal sintering, selective laser sintering or stereolithography. While the production processes are different in detail, they share a common overall pattern: material is added in powder or liquid form, an infusion of external energy causes the material to change its state, and the material evolves obeying a process specific, energy-time-space dependent development process.

The challenge additive manufacturing poses on numerical simulation is its multi-physics and multi-scale nature. Whereas relevant spatial scales range over up to 10 orders of magnitude, important time scales start at microseconds for physical processes and reach to days, which may be necessary to produce a complex structure. Physics involved include mechanical, thermal, radiation and phase change problems. This mini-symposium will address recent advances and novel strategies for the computational simulation of additive manufacturing. It will welcome contributions covering the entire process of additive manufacturing including the generation of AM suitable CAD models, models concerned with the simulation of the process itself as well as models predicting the resulting properties of the product.

The MS will collect works devoted to the study of structures in which some geometrical and/or mechanical properties and/or load conditions are uncertain and, hence, cannot be defined deterministically. The importance of this kind of study is above all related to the study of some structural problems, as the structural reliability, for which neglecting the effective uncertain nature of some structural parameters is not possible.

If the originally uncertainties are characterized stochastically, then the probabilistic and/or statistic approaches can be used for the definition of the uncertainty propagation, that is for the probabilistic characterization of the structural response. In alternative, other non-probabilistic approaches, such as the interval analysis one, can be used.

Spring lattice models for two- and three-dimensional solids are gaining attractivity for mainly two reasons. In the simplest case, the uniaxial members allow the immediate implementation of experimental knowledge on complex material processes beyond elasticity like plasticity, creep, damage and failure, thus overcoming the necessity of multiaxial constitutive theories. In addition, the kinematics and statics of the lattice model are represented by system operators of computational performance superior to that pertaining to finite element methods. On the other hand, the setup of the lattice model and the design of the constituing cells impose the properties of the continuum in such a manner that they cannot be controlled arbitrarily. It in general not possible to adjust the representation of a solid or a structure to the desired degree. Supplementary arguments then become necessary which increase the complexity of the model. They may be artificial on mathematic grounds; preferably they should be physical in nature.

The session is conceived as a forum for researchers involved in the subject. Presentation of current work should stimulate the exchange of topical information and experience. It is intended to focus on model simplicity with reference to physical relevance. Particular attention is to be paid on encountered deficiencies of lattice approaches and on methods of removing them.

Lattice models are of interest to areas other than the mechanics of solids as well, as are also in modelling multiphysics phenomena. Related presentations in theory and application are expected to enrich the content of the session.

In practical engineering applications in complex geometry meshing typically represents a large portion of the overall design and analysis time/cost. In the computational community, the ability to perform calculations on tetrahedral meshes has always been regarded as very important, since the meshing time
required with tetrahedral elements is usually at least an order of magnitude smaller than for hexahedral or other types of finite elements. The fundamental reason is related to the fact that tetrahedral grids can be efficiently generated in complex geometry using fully automatic procedures, while this is not the case for other types of finite elements (such as hexahedral elements).

For these reasons, tetrahedral elements have received recent attention in a number of important application areas involving complex three-dimensional geometries in cardiovascular, biomedical, automotive, and aerospace simulations. Originally, tetrahedral element technology in fluid and solid mechanics has however suffered from stability issues, such as locking, pressure checkerboard instabilities, etc.

In a number of recent advances, new methods have been proposed to overcome these difficulties, and the proposed mini-symposium is aimed at presenting modern formulations for tetrahedral finite element computations, and spurring a discussion about future directions of research in this area.

The mini symposium wants to bring together innovative computational technologies which support an overall efficient virtual product development and design process. The focus of the contributions is on new developments which minimize the human effort during the development process by merging different disciplines from the genesis of a component (CAD) over the physical state analysis (CAE) to the realization of the component (CAM). These Computer Aided technologies (CAD, CAE, CAM, etc.) are usually abbreviated by CAx.

Expected contributions deal with

• Analyzing complex CAD geometries
• Trimmed multi-patch geometries
• Isogeometric B-Rep analysis
• Robust treatment of “dirty geometries”
• Non-body fitted volume discretizations and solution techniques
• Fast 3D mesh generation for embedded methods
• Combined isogeometric and embedded methods
• Analysis in Computer Aided Design

It can be summarized that methods are presented which allow for quick model setups through the entire product development and design process. The physical state analysis is focused but not limited to structural, solid and fluid mechanics and can be realized by any suitable methodology.

This symposium address both, the fundamental basis and the applicability of state of the art particle-based computational methods that can be effectively used for solving a variety of problems inside the scope of fluid mechanics and fluid-structure interactions.

Significant advances have been made in discrete element method (DEM), smooth particle hydrodynamic method (SPH), particle finite element method (PFEM), material point method (MPM), moving particle semi-implicit method (MPS) and atomistic and quantum mechanics-based methods, among others. The coupling of these methods with standard numerical procedure such as finite element method (FEM), finite difference method (FDM) and also with meshless techniques are included in the scope of this symposium.

The mini-symposium will review recent advancements in numerical models for simulation of environmental flows. It will focus on bespoke algorithm developments for complex stiff problems underlying natural environmental flows and address computational efficiency, accuracy and parallelization in a spectrum of implementations from 2D shallow water equations through 3D quasi-hydrostatic to partial differential equations of fully nonhydrostatic multiscale models.
Theoretical considerations will be supported with advanced simulations and their validation. Applications will include environmental flows connecting weather and climate as well as engineering problems, such as simulations of flooding, rivers and estuaries, dam-break flows, drying and wetting areas and will include models accounting for sediment transport and evolution of bathymetry.

Applications of multiphase flows in bio-medicine, applied sciences or engineering are various: blood flow simulations in which cells are modeled as a fluid with higher viscosity than plasma, model of subduction of tectonic plates, design of ink injectors for printers, wastewater treatment, filtration and separation, generation of bubbles jets in propulsion systems, etc. In particular, in the field of micro-fluids, the behavior is different from the usual one since some factors, such as superficial tension, are dominant. Due to the difficulty of designing and building such small-scale experimental setup, numerical simulations can be particularly useful to help predicting and understanding the studied phenomenon. Numerical simulations reduce the dependency on experimental study in order to judge the complex flow patterns inside sophisticated structures involving multiphase phenomenon, and can complement experimental data. This mini-symposium will focus on the new trends in multiphase flow modeling, with special emphasis on interface models, as well as on case studies with practical applications and/or complemented with experimental data.

In this mini-symposium we would like to discuss recent advanced numerical methods for gas-liquid two-phase flow such as cavitating flow, free surface flow, bubbly flows, water vapor condensing flow, chemical reaction flow, contrail, etc. Physical/mathematical modeling for two-phase flow, phase change model deal with evaporation and condensation, numerical techniques based on Eularian and Lagragian method, VOF, level set, two-fluid and homogeneous model, upwinding strategies, numerical schemes for low Mach number flow including preconditioning will be considered. Also, numerical examples applied to engineering flow problem encountered in turbopumps for rocket propulsion systems, hydroturbines, industrial turbomachinery, hydrofoils, hydro-propulsion systems, fuel injectors, biomedical devices, fuel spray in internal combustion engines, sloshing tank and so on will be welcome.

One of the main goals of aviation is an environmentally friendly aircraft design. This includes the reduction of noise as well as the minimisation of fuel consumption to which particular attention should be paid at this point. The greatest potential for minimising fuel consumption lies in the reduction of total drag, consisting to a large extent of aerodynamic drag caused by the turbulent boundary layer which is developed along the entire aircraft surface. The research project MaKoS, which was initiated at the beginning of 2014, should treat the aerodynamic drag reduction numerically and experimentally: The objectives of MaKoS are, on the one hand, the understanding of formation and effect mechanisms of very-large coherent structures that are generated within the turbulent boundary layer, and, on the other hand, the development of manipulation and control concepts affecting the very-large turbulent flow structures and minimizing the wall shear stress reducing viscous drag. Existing actuator technologies are further developed so that a control of the regeneration cycle of the turbulence is possible. The focus of the project lies on the optimisation of analyses and simulation methods for the modelling of actuated flow as well as on the optimised use of optical methods for the investigation of turbulent coherent structures.

This mini-symposium will give an overview of the physical understanding of very-large turbulent flow structures, their interactions with the viscous sublayer and buffer layer in the turbulent boundary layer and associated control concepts. In addition to that, the mini-symposium will discuss integrated simulation and experimental validation techniques. Among others the following topics will be addressed:

• Zonal RANS-LES simulations of the actuated flow
• Integration of POD, dynamic mode composition and helical wave decomposition
• Modules for detection of “super-large structures” and “large structures”
• Active closed loop control
• Near wall turbulences using STB algorithm
• Wall turbulence over rotating discs
• Euler-Lagrange/DEM models
• Equation for passive scalar transport in wall-bounded turbulent flows
   

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has developed to a key technology which plays an important role in design, development and optimization in engineering practice. The role of the ERCOFTAC SIG15 (Special Interest Group for Turbulence Modelling) is closely connected to intensive verification and systematic validation of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) technology for solving the problems of both fundamental importance and industrial relevance. This task has been accomplishing for years in the form of a series of computational workshops (fifteen workshops have been hitherto organized; see
www.ercoftac.org under SIG15) aimed at evaluating predictive capabilities of turbulence models at the RANS, LES and hybrid LES/RANS level in a broad range of well-documented flows of scientific and industrial relevance. Focus is on the credibility and reliability of both the numerical methods and mathematical models simulating turbulence. In such a way a large database of simulation results along with detailed comparison with the reliable reference data (experimental, DNS and highly-resolved LES databases) has been assembled.
In addition to this prime objective the SIG15 initiated a series of mini symposiums on “Current Trends in Modelling and Simulation of Turbulent Flows”. The first three suchsymposiums were held in Lisbon, Portugal on June 14-17, 2010 in the framework of the “5th European Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics - ECCOMAS CFD 2010”, in Vienna, Austria on September 10-14, 2012 in the framework of the “6th European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering - ECCOMAS 2012” and in Barcelona, Spain on July 20-25, 2014 in the framework of the “6th European Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics - ECCOMAS CFD VI”. The mini symposium should promote the discussion and conclusions about rationale and predictive performance of variety of statistical turbulence models in the RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) framework, SGS (Sub-Grid-Scale) models in the LES (Large-eddy Simulation) framework, hybrid LES/RANS models as well as other computational models in conjunction with relevant numerical treatment in a broad range of well-documented turbulent flow configurations under the scientists, researchers, users and developers from industry and from the academic field.

Currently, the design process in engineering applications is experiencing a change in paradigm away from experience-based design to numerical design. In many such engineering applications, complex fluid flow problems are encountered; posing the challenge of understanding, describing, computing, and controlling these flows. In this spirit, this minisymposium aims at providing a forum for questions concerning both numerical and optimization methods specific to fluid flow. On the modelling-side it covers the issues related to complex, non-Newtonian flow phenomena, such as choice of model or appropriate
stabilization. Furthermore, in the area of simulation, novel numerical methods, ranging from discretization methods to both free-boundary problems and deforming domain problems, are considered. In all cases, the flow solution may serve as the forward solution of a shape optimization problem, requiring a shape representation and a design objective along with problem-specific optimization schemes.

Topics of this minisymposium include, but are not limited to:

- Methods particular to specific applications such as primary manufacturing processes, dam breaks, industrial storage tanks, combustion engines, ship design, etc.
- Non-Newtonian fluid models describing shear-thinning or viscoelastic properties, e.g., Carreau-Yasuda, extended Pom-Pom, Phan-Thien-Tanner, Giesekus , etc.
- Simulation methods including stabilization schemes, interface capturing, and interface tracking.
- Methods and applications related to shape optimization in fluid flow, e.g., geometry representation, boundary conditions on the shape, or choice of objective function.

The aim of the mini symposium is to provide a forum of discussion for current research in non-Newtonian flows and heat transfer subjected to external magnetic fields. Electro-kinetic instabilities may also be part of the mini symposium. The development of methods for such flows is not trivial due to the complexities arising from the coupling of different sets of partial differential equations that may include stiff source terms. Furthermore, there are uncertainties associated with the development and implementation of appropriate boundary conditions for these flows. Establishing fundamental test problems that can be used as a reference benchmark by the computational community will also be part of the mini symposium. We expect to accommodate up to 10 presentations divided across two sessions if the program of the conference can accommodate. Alternatively, one session can be organized.

The proposed Minisymposium will be devoted to the numerical methods for simulation of waves and flows in coastal and deep water hydrodynamics. Tectonic- and landslide-generated waves, propagation of waves and their run-up on coast, flooding and drying processes, and many other phenomena can be considered.

Many problems in geophysical and environmental fluid mechanics have energetic flow scale lengths that are highly nonhomogeneous. Computational methods for problems in environmental fluid mechanics have matured considerably in recent years. This mini-symposium will examine the latest developments in solving uncoupled and coupled flow and transport problems with environmental applications.

Topics of interest include:

Methodology of numerical simulation for environmental flow problems
Flow and transport processes in river, estuarine and coastal systems
Flood Disaster Mitigation
Water and air pollution and the sediment transport
Climate change
Fluid-structure interactions
Acoustic problems
High performance computing
Error analysis, verification and validation
Unstructured grid generation criteria
p and h refinement

This minisymposium follows on from the successful symposia held in San Diego 2008 (SIAM Annual Meeting), Amsterdam 2010 (ICCS), Reno 2010 (SIAM Annual Meeting), Minneapolis 2011 (US National Conference on Computational Mechanics), Vienna (ECCOMAS 2012) and Barcelona (ECCOMAS 2014). It aims at bringing together researchers from universities and research laboratories to discuss the state-of-the-art for multi-material hydrodynamics simulations and related subjects.

This minisymposium will focus on high-order numerical methods devoted to the simulation of multimaterial fluid flows and solid mechanics, on the analysis of such methods and on the modeling of complex multi-material flows which is essential for applications dealing with multi-physics multi-scale problems such as those encountered in High Energy Density Physics.

Topics to be covered include mathematical, numerical and physical aspects of, numerical algorithms for Lagrangian and Eulerian continuum mechanics,

Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) methodologies, Reconnection-based ALE strategies and adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) methods. This minisymposium is also interested in the design of high-order numerical schemes (Finite Element, Finite Volume, Discontinuous Galerkin), interface reconstruction modeling and numerical methods for complex constitutive laws.

The Symposium focuses on numerical simulations of non-Newtonian flows. Topics covered include numerical methods for solution of differential and integral constitutive models from continuum descriptions of flowing complex fluids as well as the mathematical analysis of models of flowing complex fluids and the phenomenological and statistical mechanical frameworks for describing them.

The symposium addresses not just numerical methods but also the natural phenomena and engineering processes whose prediction and understanding motivate those methods. These phenomena include turbulent drag reduction, flow instabilities and nonlinear dynamics, flows in complex geometries, multiphase flows, shear banding, extensional rheometry etc.

The development of more powerfull and energy efficient computer architectures is widening the use of large scale -high performance- computing techniques. Important increases in computational power are being achieved by many core systems with powerfull accelerators such as general purpose graphics
processing units (GP-GPUs). These systems also include more complex hierarchical cache/memory designs which permit to provide the needed data flow required by computing units. These new hardware designs poses a challenge for the implementation and scalability of current simluation algorithms and, at the same time, offers the an oportunity for the development of new ones.
In this framework the proposed minisymposium aims to discuss algorithmic aspects of large scale computing. The topics include new developments in domain decomposition, multigrid and sparse direct methods, in terms of theoretical aspects, practical implementation and scalability studies. Tailored algorithms for multiphysics problems, e.g. fluid-structure interaction, porous media flows or MHD, are also welcomed.

The PRACE user forum minisymposium focuses on high-end supercomputing for computational mechanics, with a particular focus but not limited to applications run on PRACE resources (both regular and preparatory call users). Therefore, next to invited speakers, an open call through PRACE channels will be issued for talks related to:

• Development and adaptation of algorithms and discretisations for peta and exascale computations;
• Bene ts of using high-end HPC for research and industry;
• Performance optimization and analysis of high-end HPC applications and libraries;
• Tools and techniques for enabling applications for high-end HPC;
• Software engineering and testing for high-end HPC applications;
• The view of HPC centres and organisations on the use and evolution of HPC infrastructures;
• Future challenges for HPC users towards peta and exascale.

In addition to the presentations, part of the minisymposium would be dedicated to an open discussion, inviting all participants to share their views on PRACE, and provide ideas on how PRACE can become more convenient for existing users, and help new users to do their research on large-scale (Tier-0)
supercomputers.
 

Key words: High Performance Computing (HPC), Industrial Applications, Coupled Problem

Supercomputers have made available to researchers an unprecedented amount of computing power. But "power without grip is useless": this availability of thousands of processors to compute must be accompanied with a steep evolution in software development based on HPC techniques, to open a completely new way of facing the most complex simulation problems of Computational Physics and Engineering. Especially in technology niches such as industrial, energy, environmental or biomechanical applications, treatment of complicated or coupled phenomena of fluid and solid motions are always a big issue, which always require as much computer resource as possible.

Thus the objective of this Mini-Symposium is to communicate and discuss issues and perspectives of HPC simulation, targeting industrial applications which cover fields of such as automotive, aerospace, pharmacology, energy, environmental and so on. The expected topics should include algorithms, simulation strategies, and programming techniques for the kind of complex simulations of fluid/solid phenomena (usually including coupled multiphysics) requiring massively HPC environment. Parallel issues such as the robustness and performance analysis, and introduction of pre- and post-processing techniques such as CAD integration, mesh generation or visualization are also welcome. It is preferable, but not indispensable, that authors include some numerical results of the applications to discuss the validity of the proposed methods.

The aim of this minisymposium is to exchange and discuss ideas for the application of exascale computing in engineering and applied sciences. It has become inconceivable to carry out experiments or develop a new theories in this field - and many other fields - without numerical simulations backing up all stages of research and development. The main focus of this minisymposium will be on numerical methods and tools that have been or are being adapted to work in an exascale environment which is much more challenging than lower-scale parallelism. It is hoped, that researchers from different groups working on this and related topics will benefit from the interaction and possible collaborative projects emanating from this minisymposium.

The concept of interactive and real-time physical simulations has its roots in the video game industry where structural and fluid mechanics are employed to convey a sense of environmental realism to the user [1]. In recent years this area of technology has been subject to rapid development owing principally to improvements in available computing hardware: through the use of massively parallel architectures, such as multi-core CPUs, GPUs and clusters, numerical methods may be executed much more rapidly than ever before allowing near real-time update of physics information for a given system. However, the context of such simulations has a much wider appeal.

Engineers often wish to steer as well as monitor their own physical simulations during execution. Allowing users to make live changes to a problem geometry or input parameters without the need or costly re-meshing or re-initialisation serves to greatly simplify and accelerate the design process. The combination of computational hardware and engineering algorithm development during the last decade has led to the development of near real-time simulations whose accuracy is far greater than that of methods used for gaming physics [2]. Thus, these simulations are suitable for the solution of many engineering problems.

The challenges associated with developing interactive engineering simulations stem from the requirements of combining an accurate but fast numerical method with potentially complex mechanisms for user interaction as well as rapid visualisation of the scene or physical quantities. Speed can often be achieved by using simplified physical models or coarser discretisation but at the expense of accuracy. Therefore, it is imperative to pursue a balanced approach to maintain relevance for engineering applications.

This mini-symposium will discuss recent advances and future strategies for interactive simulations within the fields of computational fluid dynamics, structural mechanics and fluid-structure interactions. The mini-symposium will feature the latest work on physical modelling as well as other critical elements, namely the means of user interaction, computer graphics and real-time rendering.

[1] Macklin et al., (2013), “Unified Particle Physics for Real-Time Applications”, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 33 (4).
[2] Mawson et al., (2013), “Real-Time Flow Computations using an Image Based Depth Sensor and GPU Acceleration”, NAFEMS World Congress.
 

Currently, the structural analysis methods are in a matured advanced level, and for many problems, dynamic analysis by commercial software is not a complicated task. Nevertheless, some deficiencies persist. As an example, due to the randomness in the material, the geometry, the topology, the boundary/initial conditions, and the applied excitations, the true structural behaviours are not deterministic. Furthermore, even in analysis of deterministic behaviours, because of the nature of the semi-discretization and time integration stages, the obtained responses are approximations, and the analyses are time consuming, specifically, in presence of nonlinearities. Consequently, the responses, generally computed in a deterministic manner after considerable computational cost, are neither precise, nor the assumption of deterministic behaviour is necessarily correct. These shortcomings and other drawbacks of structural dynamic analysis highlight, with attention to the increasing size and complicatedness of structural systems, and the fact that, practically, analyses need to be repeated by times, e.g. considering several earthquakes records in seismic analyses, sensitivity analysis, … . These imply considerable computational cost and arriving at inexact behaviours. Accordingly, reducing the costs and/or adding the accuracies of structural dynamic analyses in both deterministic and stochastic senses are important focus areas for discussion and further research.

The purpose of this mini-symposium, entitled Accuracy and Efficiency in Dynamic Analysis of Structural Systems, is to bring together different ideas from around the globe about the accuracy and efficiency of structural dynamic analyses. Contributions related to different issues on the quality of the structures dynamic analyses, and how to evaluate and enhance these qualities, are very welcome to this mini-symposium. Hopefully, in the friendly environment provided by the event, the academicians, specialists, and experts, will present their points of view, discuss the existing challenges, and make perspectives for the possible solutions, and, in returning back home, will have pleasant memories, new friends, and collaborations started, towards enhanced dynamic analysis of structural systems.

Aligned with the needs of the aeronautics industry the general aim of the Minisymposium is to present experimental and theoretical work in the highly non-linear area of unsteady shock wave boundary layer interaction (SWBLI). Although in the past a lot of research was aiming at transonic/supersonic flows, the area of unsteady shock wave boundary layer interaction has been treated very seldom. A good example is UFAST project. In recent decades the experimental methods as well as numerical approaches have been improved considerably and this is an important reason to come back to this difficult topic.

Vision-2020, whose objectives include the reduction of emissions and the development of more effective transport systems, puts strong demands on aircraft performance and weight. These lead to increased load on wings and aero-engine components. The greening of air transport systems means a reduction of drag and losses, which can be obtained by maintaining laminar boundary layers on external and internal aircraft surfaces. Increased loads make supersonic flow velocities more prevalent and are inherently connected to shock waves, which in turn may interact with a laminar boundary layer. Such an interaction can quickly lead to flow separation, which is detrimental to the aircraft performance. In order to alleviate the shock induced separation, the boundary layer at the point of interaction should be turbulent. There is little published work in this area, and the TFAST project aims to cover this knowledge gap.

The main flow cases of interest to the Minisimposium entitled “shock waves on wings/profiles, nozzle flows and inlet flows”, provide a sound validation and can be readily exploited to tackle more complex flow cases, relevant to the aeronautical industry, with confidence. In addition to basic flow configurations, flow control methods (synthetic jets, electro-hydrodynamic actuators, stream-wise vortex generators and transpiration flow) will be welcome for controlling both the shock/boundary layer interaction and the inherent flow unsteadiness.

Of special importance are closely coupled experimental and numerical investigations that allow for feeding back numerical results to the experiments and vice versa, aiming to identify and overcoming weaknesses in both approaches.

The objective of this Mini Symposium is to discuss progress and recent achievements in the numerical computation of fluid-structure-interaction problems, with an emphasis on new innovative methods and algorithms leading to faster, more accurate predictions and improved software design. The envisaged range of applications spans (but is not limited to) aero-elasticity, hydro-elasticity, biomechanical FSI and noise/structural acoustics. In particular, we welcome contributions in the vanguard of error estimation, adaptive methods, multiscale models, reduced order models, novel iterative techniques, stochastic analysis and software engineering for fluid-structure interaction problems.

The mini-symposium focuses on the development and application of methods for the analysis of structural dynamic and acoustic problems in the mid and high frequency range, in which deterministic techniques for low frequencies, such as the classical FEM and BEM, as well as typical prediction methods appropriate for high frequencies, such as the Statistical Energy Analysis, lose their suitability and have to be enhanced. The aim of the Mini-Symposium is to bring together experts discussing mid- and high-frequency methods and hybrid approaches.

In the field of mechanical engineering, tribology plays an essential role in terms of energy conversion and sustainability. Many technical devices are intended to operate at a high friction level (for instance brakes and clutches), but most systems are designed to run under conditions with low friction and minimized wear (such as bearings and joints). The latter guarantees low mechanical energy loss (and thereby high efficiency factors) and high durability.
The most commonly used methods towards reaching this goal are: covering the surface(s) with a hard and smooth coating or adding a lubricant. Conventional lubricants are oils and greases, but also other fluids (such as alcohols, carbon hydrates or water) are also used in practice. The transport of the lubricant through the contact zone between two solid surfaces causes the buildup of a normal pressure transmitted by the fluid. Consequently, the two surfaces are separated from each other, leading to a reduction of friction and wear.
This fundamental principle is influenced by the contact geometry, the associated materials, and the loading conditions, and is typically depicted in the Stribeck curve, which displays variations of the friction coefficient with respect to the respective tribological regime. Usually, the Stribeck curve is divided into the four characteristic regimes: “dry friction”, “boundary lubrication”, “mixed lubrication” and “hydrodynamic lubrication”, corresponding to the portion of pressure transmitted by solid-solid contact (from 100 % for dry friction to 0 % for hydrodynamic lubrication).
The limited stiffness of tribological contact partners provokes deformation that significantly influences the characterisctic of the lubricant gap and, consequently, affects friction and wear. In order to model this process, the coupled interaction between the fluid flow and the elastic solid bodies must be taken into account. Due to the complexity of this field, and its inherent economic significance, it has become the subject of an ever-growing body of research.
This Minisymposium is directed towards scientists interested in fundamental investigations of this type of contact, as well as scientists interested in the macroscopic dynamics of lubricated systems.

The mini-symposium will focus on recent advances, challenges and ongoing research in computational and semi-analytical methods for multiphase and multiscale modeling of hydraulic fracturing processes. Such processes are aiming at increasing the overall permeability by enhancing the fracture connectivity involved, e.g. in the exploitation of geothermal energy from deep geothermal reservoirs or the production of oil and gas.

The MS will address advantages and limitations of different computational models and simulation techniques in view of the overall goal to optimize the extraction processes, and to mitigate the risks of environmental hazards and induced seismicity.

Among others, the following topics will be covered in the Minisymposium:

• XFEM/GFEM models, Interface models, Phase-field models, isogeometric
approaches etc.
• Micromechanics models for permeability and diffusivity (tortuosity, percolation) in
intact and cracked geological materials
• Meso-scale models (Pore-network models, lattice, particle models)
• Hygro-thermo-mechanical coupling
• Novel discretization methods, adaptive techniques and high performance computing
in the context of modeling coupled hydraulic fracturing problems
• Modeling of fluid transport and reactive physico-chemo-mechanical processes

Key-words: multiphase flows, liquid-vapor mixtures, phase transition, thermodynamic transfer, computational methods

The simulation of multiphase liquid-vapor flows such as cavitating flows, boiling flows and sprays is relevant in numerous areas of engineering and industrial processes. For instance cavitating fluids [1], fluids where liquid/vapor transition occurs as a consequence of variations of the pressure eld, are observed in many engineering devices such as fuel injectors, nozzles, marine propellers, underwater systems, and turbopumps in rocket propulsion. Cavitation has typically deleterious e ects on devices performance and its prediction is therefore important for the design and operation of these technological systems. The modeling of evaporation and condensation processes is also crucial in several energy industry sectors, for example for nuclear and hydroelectric power plants and oil and gas transportation and storage.

Liquid-vapor mixtures often involve complex hydrodynamic and thermodynamic multiscale phenomena: phase transition, dynamic interface creation, strong compressibility effects, turbulence interactions. The simulation of liquid-vapor flows poses therefore several challenges, both for the formulation of appropriate and consistent mathematical and physical models and for the design of accurate and robust numerical methods. One issue concerns the accurate description of heat and mass transfer processes and possibly associated non-equilibrium thermodynamic effects such as the occurrence of metastable states. Moreover, a specifc diculty of liquid-gas flows comes from the large and rapid variation of the acoustic impedance, a feature that demands numerical methods ecient for highly compressible regimes (liquid-vapor mixture regions) as well as for nearly incompressible ones (liquid medium). In addition, simulation of realistic problems requires time-a ordable computational tools applicable to multidimensional complex geometries.

The aim of this minisymposium is to bring together scientists working on computational models for liquid-vapor flows to share and exchange ideas, discuss new trends and challenges, and propose directions for future advances in the eld. The minisymposium will include, but will not be limited to, diffuse interface approaches for multiphase compressible flows [2, 3] and front-tracking methods. It will be open to a broad spectrum of modeling and computational aspects such as complex equations of state [4], turbulence effects, thermodynamic relaxation algorithms [5], uncertainty quantification methods [6],
all-Mach-number schemes, adaptive mesh refinement techniques.

Recent years have witnessed the development of very innovative and creative numerical schemes for the approximation of dynamic problems in mechanics. These methods have allowed the robust integration of very complex problems, often obtaining at the same time accurate pictures of the underlying dynamical behavior. Whereas the available integrators can handle very effectively standard models, there is still need to advance the capabilities in solving transient problems where multiple scales and physical phenomena interact, where the solution is nonsmooth, and where computational cost remains a bottleneck.
This symposium aims at bringing together researchers across different disciplines interested in designing robust computational tools to model dynamical systems. Problems of interest include, but are not limited to, innovative integration schemes for solid, fluid, multibody, and coupled dynamical systems, development of structure preserving integrators, as well as analysis of complex dynamical systems. Methods addressing the coupling across multiple physical fields and scales are of particular interest.

This minisymposium aims to bring together computer modeling experts in the fields of electrochemistry applied to batteries and fuel cells. Both theoretical and applied work will be showcased. Our goal is to provide a forum for discussion and exchange of ideas that will lead to the development of improved computational models for industrial applications. The minisymposium explicitly targets potential speakers and audience from industry (e.g. automotive, aerospace, electronics or commercial software developers) as well as from universities and research institutes.

Topics include - but are not limited to - computational methods and models for:

- Electrochemical modeling and numerical simulation applied to batteries and fuel cells
- Computational methods for electrochemical modeling and performance evaluation
- Fluid-structure interaction at the interface between electrode and electrolyte
- Integrated approaches for multi-physical problems which couple:

• thermodynamics,
• chemistry,
• electro-magnetism,
• solid mechanics.

- Computational models for impedance, battery ageing, sub-zero temperature behavior and/or safety evaluation
-System level modeling techniques for batteries or fuel cells (e.g. electromagnetic compatibility, cooling system or battery management systems)
- Parameter estimation & inverse problems for energy storage systems

KEY WORDS: roughness, contact mechanics, lubrication, adhesion, homogenization.

Contact mechanics between rough surfaces has wide implications in a large variety of engineering systems; many technologically important aspects, such as friction, energy dissipation, contact stiffness and electrical contact resistance, are deeply influenced by the micromechanical characteristics and behaviour of the contact interfaces. Consequently, considerable research efforts have been dedicated to this issue, whose complex nature is mainly related to the geometry of the contact surfaces (roughness has a power spectrum extending up to 6 order of magnitude) and to the rheology of material in contact (phenomena due to plasticity or, especially in the presence of soft materials, to viscoelasticity have to be accounted for). The problem becomes even more complicated when a lubricating fluid is present.

This mini-symposium will deal with the techniques developed to study these problems. In particular, the majority of the sessions will focus on numerical methodologies for dry contact mechanics and adhesion between rough surfaces: finite element methods, boundary element techniques, atomistic simulations, hybrid techniques will be some of the topics of interest. The effect of elastic, viscoelastic and/or plastic material constitutive behaviors will be considered. Furthermore, some of the sessions will also be dedicated to the methodologies recently established to analyze lubricated rough contact problems: both statistic and deterministic approaches will be considered.

Immersed methods are gaining popularity in the numerical approximation of many scientific and engineering applications. Different approaches can be found, such as the embedded boundary method, the immersed boundary method, the fictitious domain, and the immersed volume method, among many others. All these methods are attractive because they simplify a number of numerical difficulties in Fluid-Structure applications. However, several important theoretical and implementation issues arise, such as the imposition of boundary conditions, the treatment of time dependent domains or the transmission conditions between fluids and solids.

This mini-symposium aims then at bringing together researchers to discuss the advantages and the limitations of these methods and to exchange new ideas and recent developments. The focus will be on new methodologies to deal with flow problems or both rigid and deformable body interactions with fluids, as well as on improved algorithms to increase the efficiency and accuracy of techniques such mesh adaptation, interface localisation or intersection.

Challenging applications and benchmarks problems coming from various areas of engineering and applied sciences, such as multiphase flow problems, conjugate heat transfer, turbulent flows, aerodynamics or aeroelasticity, are welcome.

By 2050, 75% of the population is expected to live in cities. Today’s galloping urbanization impacts heavily on People and Environment. Smart-City aims at proposing efficient, sustainable and adaptive infrastructures to improve the quality of life while reducing the resource consumption and thus respecting the environment. In Smart-City, numerical simulations and sensor outputs are usually combined to provide robust decision aid tools for the collectivity. It concerns a wide range of applications: air and water quality, energy efficiency in buildings, urban mobility, etc…

In the mini-symposium, we address the computational issues in Smart-City applications such as numerical methods for PDEs, model reduction techniques, inverse problems and optimal sensor placement. We deal with building, district or city scales. To get a fruitful discussion, academic and industrial contributions are welcome.

In the natural environment, turbulence is a complex multiscale physical phenomenon which drives fundamentally important transport, dissipation and mixing in the natural environment. In mid-air/water, turbulence enables transport against the stabilizing effect of stratification, whose background profile is mixed by turbulence along with the background profiles of other tracers. Moreover, turbulence is the primary driver of fluxes of gases, sediment, particulate matter and biogeochemical constituents across the critically important air-sea, air-ground and sediment-water interfaces which can also significantly modify the interfaces' geometry. Environmental turbulence is typically generated by current-topography/structure interactions, shear instabilities and larger-scale, spatiotemporally variable, wave motions. The considerable scale-separation between the space/time-scales of larger-scale waves and topographic features and the small, more localized turbulent scales, gives rise to a number of challenges in the computation of environmental turbulence. Additional challenges arise in the modeling of turbulent processes at the above free-surface and bottom-boundary interfacial regions.

The proposed special session seeks contributions on computational strategies that enable the highly accurate, stable, efficient and flexible Navier-Stokes equation-based numerical simulation of turbulent transport and mixing in environmental flow phenomena. Relevant topics include high accuracy time integrators, high accuracy/resolution spatial discretization schemes (with a focus on element-based schemes), approaches for minimizing numerical dissipation and dispersion, unstructured gridding techniques, fast Poisson solvers/preconditioners, highly scalable parallelization strategies applied to large-scale computation, adaptive mesh refinement techniques, particle tracking/modeling, sediment transport modeling, coupled air-water and water-sediment interface modeling and subgrid-scale parameterizations. Presentations should focus on the numerical fundamentals of the specific method, its particular advantages and how its implementation has enabled an increased degree of geophysical realism as shown through application to a particular process study.

This minisymposium is organized by young investigators (all of which are members of the ECCOMAS Young Investigators Committee) for young investigators. The format of this minisymposium is different from the regular ones to particularly attract young researchers.

There are two possibilities for presentations:

1. Presentation in pairs:
   Two presenters prepare and submit their abstract together. They should know each other but should not work at the same institution. The idea is to view a topic from two different perspectives, thus leading to intense discussions on pros and cons of the presented approaches.

2. Presentation of things that did not work (as expected):
   This session is dedicated to those works which did not work or lead to different outcomes than expected. This gives the chance to present “negative” results. Authors should discuss why things went “wrong” with the aim to prevent others from falling into the same traps.

An imposed magnetic field, if it is sufficiently strong, profoundly affects a flow of a liquid metal, plasma, or another electrically conducting fluid. Often, this leads to new and unique challenges in the flow's computational modeling. At the minisymposium, we will discuss these challenges and the ways of overcoming them. A broad range of applications related to various physical phenomena and numerical approaches will be considered including, but not limited to: models of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, effective methods for flows at high Hartmann numbers, numerical analysis of MHD effects in astro- and geophysics, MHD instabilities, magnetoconvection.

The aim of this Mini-Symposium is to bring together specialists in mechanics and micromechanics of materials, applied mathematics, continuum mechanics, materials science, physics as well as mechanical, automotive and aerospace engineering to discuss advances in computational analysis of relationships between the microstructural features of advanced materials and their local and global behaviour as well as its effect on performance of components and structures.

The topics of the Mini-Symposium include, but are not limited to, the following:

- mechanics of advanced materials and structures;
- effect of microstructure on properties and performance of advanced materials;
- prediction of deformational behaviour and life-in-service of structures and components made of advanced materials;
- computational models of natural and artificial biomaterials;
 -computational methods for the analysis of modern visco-elastic composite and nanocomposites materials;
- mechanics of composite materials with relaxation and phase transitions;
- simulation of failure mechanisms and damage accumulation processes in advanced materials;
- reliability analysis of microelectronic packages;
- computational analysis of cutting of advanced materials;
- optimization problems in mechanics of advanced materials and structures.

Despite the huge progress made the last decades in the science of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composites, some of their properties still have to be improved in order to fully exploit the advantages offered. Such properties are the fracture toughness of the polymer matrix, which makes composite structural parts prone to fatigue and impact, and low electrical conductivity, which brings the need for including in the composite material conductive metal fibers and metal screen. Carbon-based nanofillers, such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, due to their excellent mechanical and electrical properties offer a unique opportunity for improving the fracture toughness and electrical conductivity of composite materials when used as reinforcements in the matrix. Modeling of nanofilled composite materials, although it is a complicated task, due to involvement of different analysis scales, has been proved a very useful tool for the design and optimization of the materials.

This minisymposium aims to provide an international discussion forum for researchers employing models for predicting the mechanical and electrical properties of nanofilled composite materials. The topics of the minisymposium include, but are not limited to:

• Atomistic modeling (molecular mechanics, molecular dynamics, etc)
• Atomistic-based continuum modeling
• Continuum modeling (FEA, boundary element, etc)
• Multi-scale modeling
• Interfacial mechanics
• Micromechanics models
• Modeling-driven design
• Fracture mechanics models
• Development of software modules
• Multiphysics modeling

This minisymposium is considered to be a forum for scientists and engineers working in the field of computational wood mechanics and wood technology. The submitted contributions should refer to recent developments and advances on analytical and numerical aspects of the mechanical and physical behavior of wood and timber structures. Also contributions dealing with developments in the fields of wood processing and innovative wood composites are welcome.

Main topics of interest are e.g.

• numerical analysis of timber structures and structural elements,
• modeling of timber joints and connections,
• macroscopic constitutive modeling,
• fracture behavior of wood,
• large deformations and damage,
• moisture-induced deformations and moisture transport,
• wood drying and processing,
• engineered wood products,
• wood/glass and wood/steel composites.

The main idea of the present mini‐symposium (MS) proposal is to bring together the most relevant and active researchers in the field of joining and assembly processes for both single and multi-materials. Advanced techniques for joining/assembly similar or dissimilar materials are responsible for the improvement and added value of complex components for critical applications, namely on aeronautic, aerospace and automotive industries. Being a challenging and difficult research area, involving transversal knowledge communication from a number of science fields’ representative, the organizers of the MS believe that the opportunity provided by a high impact international conference such as ECCOMAS 2016 is the ideal one to promotea research forum on this area.

The MS aims therefore to provide a forum for discussion on the fundamentals and computational methods involved in the modelling, simulation and understanding of joining/assembly processes, ranging from “classical” approaches based on the Finite Element Method to more advanced and alternative
methodologies, such as Arbitrar Lagrangian-­‐Eulerian (ALE) concepts, Meshless (or Mesh-­‐Free) methods, Isogeometric Analysis (IGA), Phase-­‐field modelling, to name but a few.

Multi-scale modelling, on the other hand, can be a common requirement for any methodology, and a number of phenomena can be analysed in detail within joining/assembly of materials (thermo‐mechanical-­‐chemical coupling, phase transformations, transient effects, residual stress patterns, fatigue under
service loads, integrity and reliability of the compound material after joining, and so on). Providing the reference data and expertise for all the modelling aspects to be covered in the MS, experimental analysis is a crucial aspect to be also covered within the MS, indispensable for all the necessary parameters’ identification for the numerical models but also for the proper validation of the results coming from simulation. Following this approach, the proponents of this MS strongly believe that the present proposal can be an added value to the ECCOMAS 2016 international conference, looking forward to
a positive feedback from the Conference Organizers.

Numerical modelling of materials behaviour under conditions of processing, manufacturing and exploitation is still the subject of scientific research and is widely used in industry. High accuracy of predictions depends, among others, on correct description of the material properties in terms of model definition and quantitative estimation of model parameters. Nowadays, modelling includes phenomena occurring in materials at various scales, from nano- through micro- and mezo- to macro- scale. Thus, developing material models describing the phenomena at different scales and determination of model parameters remains a challenge for scientific community. The objective of the minisymposium is to gather researchers working on material modelling and to enable exchange of experience. The papers on the following topics are invited

• Identification problems of:

o micro-scale models based on Monte Carlo, cellular automata, molecular dynamics and molecular statics methods, crystal plasticity models and others,
o macro- scales models based on classical theory of elasticity, plasticity, viscosity, flow theory, etc.,
o combined micro-macro models,
o models based on digital microstructures,
o models based on statistically representative volume elements,
o models of crack propagation, strain localization, microstructure evolution, solidification, phase transformation and others.

•  Methods of parameters identification:

o inverse analysis,
o analytical procedures,
o methods based on artificial intelligence,
o others.

• Sensitivity analysis for material models.
• Calibration methods for material models.
• Model uncertainty problems.
• Experimental procedures, benchmark tests and analysis methods of results in terms of numerical modelling.

Textiles are fiber-based structures. The modern textile reinforcement composites are based on fiber-based structures, too. The modeling of these structures was based early mainly on geometrical methods or using simple models based on the analytical mechanics. During the last time significant results are achieved using the computational mechanics. The most problems during modeling are in the combination of the following typical parameters of the structures:

- they are based on a huge number of single fibers (at least 40 fibers per cross section in a single yarn, 50 000 filaments in carbon tow, couple hundred yarn pieces per small sample)
- fibers and their parameters are not regular
- friction (with the stick and slip effect) plays significant role for the behavior
- the problems are usually non-linear (non-linear geometry, non-linear relations in the equilibrium equations) and the systems of equations are usually stiff.
- properties of the structures depend on the load case (under tension, lateral compression, torsion, bending)
- the interaction between the textile and the matrix in a composite materials is very complex.

The goal of the symposium will be to connect the peoples, using computational mechanics to model the fiber–bases structures and the problems of their engineering design. Further the goal is to demonstrate the open problems to the peoples of the computational mechanics and to allow broad discussions and possibilities for new cooperation between research teams.

Micromechanical modelling of materials includes different methods on different length scales. At present the most commonly used methods are numerical using direct FEMs or applying existing packages (e.g., ABAQUS).  These methods have advantages and drawbacks. However they could not exist without basic analytical solutions of the problems.

The Mini-Symposium will concentrate on new ideas in micromechanical modeling of different types of composites with respect to the application of a combination of numerical and analytical methods. It aims to bring together experts across the disciplines to discuss new models and new trends in this field.

The topics focus on the following aspects:

– Micromechanics of deformation and microstructural fracture aspects

–  Atomistic studies on deformation and fracture

–  Modelling of interfaces and interface cracks

–  Micromechanical modelling on different length scales and bridging size scales

–  Layered composite materials, multilayer graded structures and graded interfaces

Results of theoretical and numerical work are likewise welcome.

Many natural materials like rock, soil, ice, wood, bone, etc., are heterogeneous, as are impor-tant man-made materials like concrete, fiber-reinforced materials, as well as many others. Often the elastic range of these materials is very small, inelastic/irreversible processes occur-ing already at “normal” use, and of course such irreversible processes occur at extreme load-ings ranging from plate tectonics to micro-indentation tests for material investigation. The heterogeneity present in many instances extends over a large range of scales, frequently to scales much smaller than those of interest for particular investigation. The inhomogeneity at sub-resolution scales often leads to incomplete knowledge and hence uncertainty and ran-domness at the scale of interest.
Various approaches have been investigated to deal with the aforementioned situations com-putationally, and will be the focus of this session. For some phenomena, the heterogeneity averages out at larger scales, leading to the by now well-known homogenisation approaches. In other cases heterogeneities at small scales directly initiate some large-scale behaviour, so that the result is an amplification of the heterogeneity in inelastic/irreversible behaviour.
Hence the main topics of the invited session will include - but will not be limited - to:
- Mathematical formulations for heterogeneous irreversible processes
- Homogenisation
- Multi-scale formulations
- Computational multi-scale for inelastic processes like FE² and element-in-element methods
- Uncertainty quantification for heterogeneous inelastic materials
- Identification of heterogeneous materials
- non-local constitutive material laws

Key words: Material design & properties, manufacturing, multi-scale analysis, data exchange, virtual processing & testing

The production of increasingly valuable goods requires highly advanced, knowledge-based, tailored materials and components. To meet the ambitious objective of life-cycle modelling of products is an integrative description of the component history, starting e.g. from a homogeneous, isotropic melt; continuing via subsequent process steps, and ending ideally in the description of failure onset under operational load. The realisation of such a modelling scenario at different scales is one of the key objectives of ICME. Its focus is on engineering the component properties as a function of local material properties at the micro- and nano-scale. These properties themselves have experienced an evolution and depend on the entire manufacturing process history as well on the design of the component and on the alloy composition. Another key objective of ICME is to combine high-throughput or high accuracy material characterization techniques with novel multi-scale simulation methods to predict more accurately material properties. Their skilful combination will lead to significant improvements in e.g. prediction of phase stability in multi-component materials, accelerates materials development and, at
the end, unifies design and manufacturing.

The aim of this mini-symposium is to present novel developments and discuss recent advances on ICME related topics, including following aspects:

· Multi-scale modelling of different manufacturing process steps of a component;
· Standardization of data transfer between models acting at different scale or manufacturing steps;
· New computational mechanics tools based on materials physics in order to predict more accurately material properties (e. g. efficient solvers for microstructure-based simulation, like Lippman-Schwinger (FFT, SLS,…) or model reduction methods (POD, PGD), …) ;
· Microstructure-based materials processing models combined with high-accuracy material characterization methods (EBSD, TEM, …);
· Material design based on numerical concurrent methods combining different scale algorithms;
· Inverse problems in material design: tailor microstructure to optimize material properties;
· Materials: alloys, plastics, composites, functionally graded materials, concrete, …

Composite materials are widely used as loaded carrying components in various fields such as the aerospace, aviation, automotive and wind power industries. Compared to traditional metallic materials, composite materials are particularly attractive for engineering applications due to their high specific strength and stiffness, as well as their superior fatigue resistance properties. Nevertheless, damage in composites at various scales can be attributed to complex failure mechanisms, which significantly deteriorate the durability and damage resistance during service. Interface debonding is one of the most prominent failure modes in composite materials. A number of computational models have been proposed and developed to account for the different characteristics of the mechanical behavior of various composite systems, such as fiber-reinforced, laminates and particle reinforced composites, with respect to varying loading conditions. In additional, multiscale and homogenization methods are often applied to investigate the effects of the microstructure and the interaction between constituents on the interface behavior of composites.

Contributions are encouraged, which deal with modeling the mechanical material behavior of physical interfaces between different constituents in a composite material. Works attributed to the development of material models for interfaces are particularly welcome, but the validation of models by experimental testing and applications of existing models to the simulation of experimentally observable effects are also invited. Any material system can be addressed, including multi-phase metals, MMC/CMC/PMC, laminates and biological or bio-inspired material.

In recent years, a growing interest has been observed toward spectral "FFT-based" methods originally introduced in the 1990s for simulating the elastic response of heterogeneous materials. Contrary to finite element codes, these dedicated methods:

     do not require any meshing procedure,

     are generally much more efficient from a computational viewpoint,

     are well-suited for a (massively) parallel implementation,

     are straightforward to implement,

     are well-suited for various physics and consequently for multi-physics.

The purpose of the mini-symposium is to promote discussion between researchers working on:

     the method itself (algorithm, theoretical background, Green operator evaluation),

     its extension in the fields of mechanics (i.e. finite strains, damage, interfaces),

     its extension to various physical domains,

     its application to various kinds of materials and properties,

     its implementation  in High Performance Computing environments.

The objective of this minisymposium is to bring together researches working in the field of smart material systems and structures. This field of research requires cutting-edge multi–interdisciplinary investigations and presents numerous new challenging problems.
The minisymposium will provide a forum for presentation and discussion of modelling and computational issues concerning with smart material systems and structures, and will cover such topics like non-linear static and dynamic multi-field analysis of piezoelectrics, shape memory alloys and polymers, and other functional materials, as well as extended structural design methodologies related to sensing and actuation in structures with embedded functional (active) materials.

Topics:
• phenomenological and micromechanical constitutive models of smart (active, functional) materials
• sensing and actuation in material systems and structures
• shape memory alloys and polymers
• electrostrictive, magnetostrictive materials
• hysteresis effects
• multiphysics and multiscale modelling
• computational methods and simulation techniques
• structural control and identification
• active/passive systems for suppression of vibrations
• engineering applications of smart material systems

The aim of this symposium is to provide a discussion ground for researchers involved in efficient algorithms for microstructure-sensitive simulation and design of heterogeneous materials and structuctures across two or more scales. The preferred topics include (but are not restricted to)

• reconstructing and compressing microstructures of real-world materials,
• microstructure-informed enrichment strategies in micromechanics of materials,
• quasicontinuum methods for discrete dissipative networks.

Contributions related to problems without clear separation of scales and/or random heterogeneous media are particularly welcome.

Key words: composite design, strength, fatigue, stability, delamination, fracture

Composite structures excel by their excellent strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratio and have demonstrated over decades a superior potential in lightweight design. The combination of high design flexibility and high performance material properties is of special relevance in aerospace, civil, automotive and wind energy engineering, in industry design and beyond. The variety of available composite materials represents a subset of potential material designs tailored to the physical needs of various engineering disciplines and applications. The success of each design essentially depends on its failure resistance linked with the need to explore carefully the natural limit states with regard to strength, fatigue and stability.

The reliable prediction of failure includes both phenomena, material degradation and structural instabilities or any combination thereof and calls for sophisticated numerical methods which allow to assess the physical response on different models and different scales. Furthermore, robustness, accuracy and computational efficiency are key factors for an innovative and sustainable composite structural design which exploits the full lightweight potential.

This mini-symposium aims at bringing together researchers from across the composite structures community to discuss and exchange latest achievements in the field of composite material and structures research. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to aspects of modelling and analysis of composite materials and structures across the scales, fracture, delamination, fatigue and stability, high-performance composites, computational and algorithmic aspects, model verification and validation by experiments and applications.

Stress analysis of composite structures, Failure of composite structures,  Comparison of computational and experimental methods in composite structures, Interface problems in composites, Computer aided design in composite structures, Study of constructions made of composite materials.

Computational and experimental methods of composite structures made from advanced materials.

Key words: Homogenization, Multiscale methods, Materials.

Multiscale computational homogenization methods refer to a class of numerical techniques for determining the effective behavior of complex and highly heterogeneous materials, and for computing the response of structures composed of these materials. The main added value of computational homogenization consists in surpassing limitations of analytical approaches, e.g. incorporating realistic multi-phase morphologies and complex nonlinear material behavior.

This minisymposium focuses on the developments and applications of either multiscale computational homogenization methods, including all pending challenges in this area, or on modeling and simulation methods at the scale of heterogeneous microstructures with an implicit or explicit connection to another scale. Particular emphasis is given on complex models to incorporate particular phenomena at a given scale and related simulation challenges occur (complex morphologies, large models, lack of deterministic description of constituents, presence of interfaces…)

The topics covered include (but not limited to):

• FE2 methods
• Advanced algorithms for reduction of computational costs associated with multiscale algorithms (model reduction, parallel computing…)
• Numerical modeling of materials based on realistic microstructures, e.g. provided by high resolution 3D imaging techniques;
• Computational homogenization of heterogeneous, linear, time-dependent and nonlinear heterogeneous materials, including material dynamics and metamaterials;
• Heterogeneous materials with coupled multi-physics behavior (phase change, chemo-mechanics, nonlinear thermo-mechanics...), including extended homogenization schemes
• Multiscale damage modeling, capturing the transition from homogenization to localization;
• Computational homogenization including size effects, higher-order gradients or lack of scale separation;
• Numerical modelling of the macroscopic behaviour of microstructures with complex interfaces, microcracking, instabilities or shear bands;
• Integration of phenomena occurring at the nanoscale;
• Integration of stochastic microscopic models.

The development of multiscale, multiphysics and multi-uncertainty models has received significant attention over the last decade. New mathematical formulations and numerical solution strategies allied to the increase in computational power/cost ratio have fostered a dramatic growth in this continuously expanding field. Research activity in this area has been devoted to the development and combination of different analytic tools (homogenization, asymptotic analysis) and computational methods (parallel computing, stochastic analysis, code coupling) for application in fields as diverse as metal processing, composite material, oil & gas development, fuel cell technology and biomedical tissue engineering etc. Such developments have played a central role in the understanding of the interaction among multi-physics and multi-uncertainty phenomena taking place at multiple scales in space and time. Nevertheless, new challenges remain emerging mainly driven by advanced industrial applications, and these outstanding challenges continue to drive the most forefront research in computational mechanics and computational engineering.

It is also true that in many scientific and engineering problems, the challenges associated with multi-scale, multi-physics and multi-uncertainty often arise together and even coupled, and therefore a synthesized solution approach is required. In the most general format, the proposed Mini-Symposium timely targets the latest advances in the modelling of multi-scale, multi-physics and multi-uncertainty problems. The main aims of the Mini-Symposium are: (a) To present the state-of-the-art in this field by showing the most recent developments by leading experts, and (b) To provide a forum for discussion of current research trends and future challenges in computational multi-scale,  multi-physics and multi-uncertainty modelling. From the methodology point of view, the MS welcome the following (not exhaustive) list of techniques:

• Computational homogenization and multi-scale modelling
• Multi-physics modelling including fluid-structure interaction
• Stochastic modelling and probabilistic engineering
• High-performance computing related to the 3M challenges
• Constitutive modelling for materials and bio tissues
• Other related topics

The aim of this minisymposium is to provide a forum for discussing the recent developments in multiscale and computational methods applied to fracture and failure analysis of structures. This minisymposium seeks to bring together researchers working on numerical methods for predicting failure at a single or at multiple scales, characterizations of failure mechanisms and modeling of fracture within complex mechanical systems.

Under this theme, topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Novel discretization techniques for modeling cracks and discontinuities (e.g., XFEM/GFEM, meshless and particle methods, peridynamics, etc.)

- Reliable formulations for damage mechanics (e.g., nonlocal methods, gradient methods, phase field methods and other regularization techniques).

- Cohesive cracks and special types of boundary conditions related to material degradation

- Multiscale approaches to characterize fracture and failure in heterogeneous materials

- Computational modeling of static and fatigue failure of composites

- Characterization of fracture and instabilities criteria in various materials

- Modeling of failure and degradation of multiphysics phenomena (e.g., thermo-mechanical coupling due to impact and blast, environment induced material degradation and others).

- Multigrid, domain decomposition and other advancements in iterative techniques for efficient solution of large-scale failure-type problems

Keywords: Multi-physics failure in solids, discrete fracture, diffuse damage, microstructural failure mechanisms, contact mechanics

The complexity of modeling inelastic processes in solids involving multi-physical phenomena from different signature along with their evolution at various length and time scales leads to new challenges from the mathematical and the numerical points of view. Recent developments in mathematical theories and computational methods have enabled a more comprehensive understanding of these phenomena through novel constitutive material and interface laws. These novel formulations take specifically into consideration such multi-scale and multi-field aspects with the aim of achieving a higher level of understanding and representativeness of the computational predictions.

In this setting, the goal of this mini-symposium is to provide a forum for communications as well as to promote interactions among mathematics, mechanics and materials science on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• Cohesive zone modeling and contact mechanics
• Constitutive interface laws at different length scales: micro- and meso-mechanics
• Debonding and delamination
• Friction and wear
• Multi-field modeling of damage and contact mechanics
• Multi-scale methods for damage and contact mechanics

Numerical modelling of behaviour of materials and structures under conditions of processing, manufacturing and exploitation is widely used in industry and research. Several classical and alternative methods are commonly used to create a complex description of a particular deformation, thermomechanical or heat treatment processes and computational models replicate phenomena, that take place in the material in different length and time scales. The objective of the minisymposium is to gather researchers working on various aspects of modelling of phenomena occurring in materials at various scales, from nano through micro and mezo to macro scale, and to enable exchange of experience.
The papers on the following topics are invited o Conventional multi scale approaches based on the FE (XFEM, GFEM, FE2).

o Theoretical basis of various applications of multi-scale analysis techniques, such as Homogenization Method (HM), Monte Carlo (MC) method, Cellular Automata (CA) method, Molecular Dynamics (MD), etc.
o Alternative multi scale methods: e.g. combination of the CA-FE method, Neuro-Fuzzy Cellular Automata–Finite Element technique (nF-CAFE) or Neuro Expert Cellular Automata–Finite Element models (NESCAFE).
o Development of the statistically representative volume elements.
o Multiscale methods involving uncertainties.
o Multi scale approaches based on the mesh free methods and other particle methods.
o Adaptive hp methods in multiscale modelling.
o Applications of the multi scale modelling to existing and future industrial problems such as melting, casting, welding, laser treatment, joining, forming, semi-solid metalworking, highly filled material processing, injection moulding, blow or compression moulding, vapour deposition, molecular beam epitaxy, and others.
o Solving microstructural problems, such as crack propagation, strain localization, microstructure evolution, solidification, phase transformation and others.
o Application of the mutliscale modelling to functionally graded and sandwich materials.
o New multiscale computational optimization approaches in design of engineering materials.
o Inverse problems in multiscale modelling.
o micro-scale models based on Monte Carlo, cellular automata, molecular dynamics and molecular statics methods, crystal plasticity models and others,
o macro scales models based on classical theory of elasticity, plasticity, viscosity, flow theory, etc.,
o combined micro-macro models,
o models based on digital microstructures,
o models based on statistically representative volume elements,
o models of crack propagation, strain localization, microstructure evolution, solidification, phase transformation and others.

A central topic in mechanics consists in building “virtual laboratories” to optimise heterogeneous materials so as to achieve specific targets. This requires building constitutive models on one or more scales, devising and verifying well-suited numerical schemes to solve the resulting mathematical problems numerically and, most importantly, to design and optimise experimental techniques to ensure the observability of relevant quantities, and validate the models. Materials are heterogeneous or even discrete at some scale. Those heterogeneities can be accounted for either by averaging properties at smaller scales, or by considering explicitly the micro/meso structures of the materials. However, when failure occurs, it is no longer possible to separate micro from macro effects and more advanced strategies are required, such as the error-controlled adaptive model order reduction or adaptive hybrid multi-scale methods. Discretising the heterogeneities, cracks, dislocations and defects can be cumbersome using standard finite element methods. Enrichment and implicit boundary strategies can be applied to deal with complex and evolving boundaries/geometries, whereas other approaches aim at completely abolishing the need for finite element meshes. Sharing some appealing properties with mesh-free methods, isogeometric methods were recently introduced with the aim to simplify the design-through analysis concept and were recently used for digital image correlation. Such full-field techniques, used to measure material deformation, have brought up a revolution in mechanical testing of materials. The visualisation of deformation maps enables researchers to naturally address heterogeneities. In particular, the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) and grid-based methods are particularly appealing thanks to their simplicity and reasonably low cost. There are also techniques to measure deformation in the bulk of materials, such as Digital Volume Correlation (DVC). The identification of material parameters from such full-field kinematic measurements can be done using finite element model updating for material parameter identification. An alternative technique called the Virtual Fields Method (VFM) relies on global equilibrium equations and efficiently deals with parameter identification of non-linear constitutive laws or heterogeneous materials. Furthermore, this approach relaxes strong constraints on specimen shape and load, opening the possibility of a very large design space for novel experimental procedures.
This mini-symposium aims at gathering all these innovative computational aspects in the scope of heterogeneous materials. Both theoretical, numerical and practical examples are welcome.

Complex constitutive models are required to accurately simulate cementitious materials. The macroscopic behavior is strongly influenced by complex interactions on finer scales including material heterogeneity, which allows for a direct physical interpretation of phase interactions. Additionally, many phenomena can only be understood within a multi-physics approach including mechanical, thermal, moisture effects. The main objective for the minisymposium is to enable a broad research discussions on multiscale und multiphysics modeling of concrete, cement based and other quasi-brittle materials related to, but not restricted to

• mechanical models for concrete and quasi-brittle materials including damage and plasticity
• regularization of constitutive models with softening
• multiphysics modeling of porous materials including mechanical loads, temperature and moisture
• multiscale modeling in space such as FE2-type methods or adaptive methods
• homogenization methods
• characterization of time dependent phenomena such as creep, shrinkage, strength development and fatigue
• rate phenomena
• generation of numerical models on finer scales.

Over the last few years, the development of multiscale modeling in a stochastic setting for uncertainty quantification and reliability analysis of materials and structures, as well as the integration of stochastic methods into a multiscale framework is becoming an emerging research frontier. The Stochastic Finite Element Method (SFEM) received considerable attention by the computational mechanics community over the last two decades mainly due to the dramatic increase of the computational power, rendering possible the efficient treatment of complex problems with uncertainties.

This Mini-Symposium aims at presenting recent advances of SFEM in a multiscale framework. In this respect, topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Random field modeling of multiscale systems
• Characterization of random microstructure/morphology
• Efficient FE solution of multiscale stochastic partial differential equations
• SFE analysis of composite materials and structures
• Methods for improving the efficiency of Monte Carlo simulation
• Efficient algorithms to accelerate the SFE solution of multiscale problems
• Large-scale applications

Since performance of experimental and numerical tools have been largeley improved, mecahnics of materials can explore smaller and smaller scales. This mini-symposium would like to focus on the bottom of the scale ladder for mechanics of materials, exploring electronic and molecular behavior to increase our knowledge about the macro-mechanical behavior of the material.

This symposium addresses both, the fundamental basis and the applicability of small-scale models for mechanical interest. The use of small scales models often requires the development of sophisticated numerical methods to tackle the numerical challenges arising, i.e. curse of dimensionality, non-linear problems, multi-scale problems,...

At the boundary between computational mechanics, computational physics and applied mathematics, the minisymposium will offer a framework for discussing new ideas in this emerging field with emphasis on, but not limited to the following:

• Atomistic and quantum-based models: molecular dynamics, density functional theory or Hartree-Fock strategy;
• Effective continuum statistical mechanics models at the nano-scale;
• Novel concepts to overcome issues with curse of dimensionality;
• Modelling and study of surface effects;
• Robust algorithms for high-dimensional problem;
• Coupling nano-scale models with micro-scale models, atomistic-continuum coupling;
• Discussion between numerical simulation and experimental results;
• Multi-physical modeling at small length scales, e.g. for nano-electro-mechanical systems;
• Applications for bio-nanomechanics.

Topics of this Minisymposium include, but are not restricted to,

*) New homogenization methods or extensions of existing homogenization methods
*) Application of multiscale analysis to advanced types of concrete
*) Applicability/limitations of multiscale analysis of fracture and damage of concrete
*) Combined multiscale and multiphysics analysis in the framework of constitutive modeling of concrete
*) Multiscale analysis applied to static and dynamic investigations of concrete structures
*) Advanced experimental techniques to validate results from multiscale analysis of concrete and concrete structures
 

Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) has been originally introduced and developed by T.J.R. Hughes, J.A. Cottrell, and Y. Bazilevs, in 2005, to generalize and improve finite element analysis in the area of geometry modeling and representation. However, in the course of IGA development, it was found that isogeometric methods not only improve the geometry modeling within analysis, but also appear to be preferable to standard finite elements in many applications on the basis of per-degree-of-freedom accuracy. Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) were used as a first basis function technology within IGA. Nowadays, a well-established mathematical theory and successful applications to solid, fluid, and multiphysics problems render NURBS functions a genuine analysis technology, paving the way for the application of IGA to solve a number of problems of academic and industrial interest. Further fundamental topics of research within IGA include the analysis of trimmed NURBS, as well as the development, analysis, and testing of flexible local refinement technologies based, e.g., on T-Splines, hierarchical B-Splines, or locally-refined splines. Moreover, an important issue regards the development of efficient integration strategies able to reduce assembly costs, in particular when higher-order approximations are employed. Aiming at reducing the computational cost still taking advantage of IGA geometrical flexibility and accuracy, isogeometric collocation schemes have recently attracted a good deal of attention and appear to be a viable alternative to standard Galerkin-based IGA. Another more than promising topic, deserving a special attention in the IGA context, is finally represented by structure preserving discretizations.
Along (and/or beyond) these research lines, the purpose of this symposium is to gather experts in Computational Mechanics with interest in the field of IGA with the aim of contributing to further advance its state of the art.

Key words: Approximation methods, coupled problems, multi-physics.

In the last two decades research in the field of computational mechanics has advanced remarkably, mainly because of the development of a sound mathematical background and efficient computational strategies. Several innovative techniques and novel approaches for the analysis of microstructural evolution, growth, damage, and structural failure in multi-field and multi-scale problems have emerged.

This mini-symposium aims at gathering a remarkable group of scientists and engineers active in the research of multi-field and multi-scale problems. To offer a comparative overview of different computational strategies we would like to privilege presentations concerning the most innovative and original numerical techniques such as meshfree methods, multigrid methods, domain decomposition methods, spectral methods, or phase-field approaches.

Topics of the mini-symposium cover a large domain of current research, from computational materials modeling, including crystal plasticity, micro-structured materials, biomaterials, to multi-scale simulations of multi-physics phenomena. Particular emphasis will be on pioneering discretization methods for the solution of coupled non-linear problems at different length-scales.

Mesh generation can be one of the most difficult and labour intensive parts of a finite element computation. Approximately 80% of the overall time invested for a finite element analysis is devoted to geometric modelling and mesh generation. To avoid the necessity of exactly meshing a domain of computation fictitious domain methods were introduced in the early sixties. Since then many variants of these appealing approaches have been suggested, like embedded domain, immersed boundary methods or special implementations of the extended finite element method. Thanks to the simplicity of meshing complex domains, fictitious domain methods have been further developed and applied to tackle challenging problems in different fields of engineering science. This mini-symposium will focus on fictitious domain methods devoted to problems in solid mechanics, including possible interactions with other physical fields (e.g. heat, fluid, etc.). The topics of this mini-symposium will range from modeling aspects, mathematical analysis, adaptivity and implementational issues to the efficient solution of complex engineering problems.

The organizers of this minisymposium gratefully acknowledge support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in the Priority Program 1748 "Reliable simulation techniques in solid mechanics. Development of non-standard discretization methods, mechanical and mathematical analysis" under the project "DU 405/8-1, RA 624/27-1, SCHR 1244/4-1".

The mathematical foundation of minimal residual methods and their application in engineerings and sciences is an emerging area of computational mathematics and scientific computing. It consists the least squares finite element methods as well as the discontinuous Petrov Galerkin methods which may be seen as mixed generalized finite element methods.

Amongst the advantages of those schemes is instant stability and built-in a posteriori error control. The topics of the minisymposium range from adaptive mesh-refinement and its optimal complexity to implementation aspects and preconditioning.

Key words: Discontinuous Galerkin, high-order, Partial Differential Equations

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods are a variant of the Finite Element Method, which considers an element-by-element discontinuous approximation, see for instance [1,2]. Many

of them can be interpreted as a generalization of Finite Volume (FV) methods, but providing a natural framework for high-order computations and p-adaptivity. DG methods inherit several of the properties that make FV widely used in CFD, such as, inherent stabilization with proper definition of numerical fluxes, local conservation properties and efficiency for parallel computing. Despite the first DG methods were proposed in the early 1970’s, DG methods have gained special attention from academy and industry in the last years, thanks to the recent developments and new trends.

DG methods are currently being developed and applied in many areas of computational mechanics as aero-acoustics, gas dynamics, magneto-hydrodynamics, oceanography, reservoir simulation, turbo-machinery, turbulent flows, reactive flows, porous media, and other problems with multi-physical interactions and multiple scales.

The objective of this mini-symposium is to bring together researchers working in different fields to discuss recent advances and new frontiers in DG methods. We also aim to create a forum in which researchers exchange ideas and identify emerging issues. We invite the submission of abstracts for papers discussing all aspects of DG methods. They include the design and analysis of new schemes, as well as novel applications in any branch of engineering and science. We also welcome presentations that address issues of robustness and efficiency for the solution of multi-scale and multi-physics applications, and topics such as high-order mesh generation, h/p-adaptivity, time-integration methods and space-time methods.

Isogeometric analysis is a collection of methods that use splines, or some of their extensions such as NURBS (non-uniform rational B-splines) or T-splines, as functions to build approximation spaces which are then used to solve partial differential equations numerically. The use of splines and NURBS as building blocks for the construction of discrete spaces paves the way to many new numerical schemes for the numerical simulations of PDEs enjoying features that would be extremely hard to achieve within a standard finite element framework. The smoothness of splines is a new ingredient that yields several advantages: for example, it improves the accuracy per degree of freedom and allows for the direct approximation of PDEs of order higher than two. The purpose of this minisymposium is to gather experts in numerical analysis and computational geometry that are interested in developing the mathematical foundation of isogeometric analysis. Contributions are encouraged in (and not limited to) the following areas:

• Approximation properties of isogeometric spaces
• Isogeometric treatment of complex geometries (trimming, extraordinary points, immersed boundary methods…)
• Local refinement (T-splines, LR-splines and Hierarchical splines…) and adaptivity
• Stable and structure preserving isogeometric discretizations
• Theory of collocation methods and numerical quadrature
• Coupling of  isogeometric analysis and classical finite element analysis for multi-physics problems
• Linear solvers and preconditioners

In civil, and mechanical engineering, strain localization, brittle and ductile cracking, and interfacial failure are frequently observed. Typical cases are metal forming processes, failure of steel components and concrete structures, delamination of FRP plates in retrofitted structural members, matrix-inclusion debonding in composite materials, wave propagation across discontinuous media, and many others. In all these circumstances, computational models must accomplish the transition process of the primal fields from a continuous to a discontinuous regime with the possible emergence of singularities into the governing equations. Therefore, classical continuum models fail in reproducing the aforementioned discontinuities and singularities. On the contrary, regularized models enriched with one or more characteristic lengths, like nonlocal models, or models where discontinuities and singularities are replaced by continuous functions have shown remarkable good results. Recently, quite effective results have been obtained by adopting mesh-free and/or enriched discretization methods reproducing the salient features of the expected solutions. Examples are enhanced assumed strain methods, the discontinuous Galerkin method, the generalized FEM, the eXtended FEM, and meshless approximations. In several cases, these discretization methods face severe computational issues like quadrature of discontinuous and singular fields, stabilization, sudden loss of stiffness at the continuous-discontinuous transition, and non linear constitutive models, to cite the most common.

The mini-symposium will focus on theoretical, computational and practical issues related to the application of innovative discretization methods, such as enhanced assumed strain methods, the discontinuous Galerkin method, the generalized FEM, the eXtended FEM, meshless approximations. For instance, the mini-symposium will gather contributions dealing with:

- regularized computational models for mechanically consistent transition processes from continuous to

discontinuous models ;

- innovative algorithms and recent results for quadrature of discontinuous and singular integral terms.

- enriched and mesh-free discretization methods combined with nonlocal elasto-damaging and elastoplastic

continuum models for ductile and brittle failure.

Simulation based on computational solid mechanics models describes the response of a solid body as a function of its geometry, loading, boundary conditions and material behaviour.  Solid mechanics models are in general based on the finite element method, while other numerical or semi-analytical methods may also be used. Verification and validation are two important aspects of engineering simulation. Verification is defined as ‘the process of determining that a computational model accurately represents the underlying mathematical model and its solution’; while validation is defined as 'the process of determining the degree to which a model is an accurate representation of the real world from the perspective of the intended uses of the model'.  Although software developers should verify their engineering simulation codes, it is the responsibility of the users to perform sufficient validation of the models developed using the software, by reference to experiments specifically designed for this purpose.

Optical measurement technologies, such as Digital Image Correlation (DIC), Digital Speckle Pattern Interferometry (DSPI), shearography and other relevant experimental methods have reached to a sufficient technology readiness level that enable displacement or strain data over large areas or even the entire structure to be reliably captured during an experimental test and thereafter visualized and analyzed. Such developments have provided the background for a more comprehensive approach to model validation used in engineering design and evaluation of structural integrity, which could lead to optimized and less conservative designs.

During the minisymposium Mini-Symposium MS 908 ‘Verification and Validation of Structural Mechanics Simulation Models’, the most recent developments on simulation model verification and validation methodologies and techniques will be presented by researchers from industry and academia, focusing on validation of aircraft, marine and automotive structural components.

Although thermal comfort evaluation is traditionally a subjective or experimental subject, it is becoming important to achieve and validate results using numerical simulation results. CFD simulation of the environment and also the human body numerical simulations could help and validate traditional results and building tools for further decisions making.

The idea of a generalized continuum was developed during the 1960s [1] to model highly heterogeneous materials in cases when material microstructure significantly affects the overall deformation of a body. The most well-known generalized continuum theories are non-local eld theories [2], higher gradient theories [3] and microcontinuum eld theories [4]. During the recent decades, due to the active development of new engineering materials, extensive research has been undertaken to develop new and modifed theories that can eciently describe mechanical behaviour of such materials at small scales, as well as applications of such models to various practical problems (see for example, [5]).

Generalized continuum models introduce intrinsic material length scale directly into the constitutive equations, which makes them capable of predicting size e ects, but the resulting equations are signi cantly more complex than those in the classical theory, including the presence of higher-order derivatives or small material parameters which require special consideration in the development of corresponding numerical techniques. The purpose of this mini-symposium is to bring together researchers to discuss the development of numerical methods well-suited to solving the boundary value problems arising from the mechanics of generalized continua as well as their use in the practical applications. Suggestions for contributions include: numerical methods with high-order continuity e.g. isogeometric analysis and meshfree methods; mixed nite element methods; boundary element methods; modi ed generalised theories amenable to standard finite element implementation; and large-scale parallel simulations of practical three-dimensional problems.

Key words: High order computational fluid dynamics, error estimation, adjoint methods, mesh adaptation, Navier-Stokes

Over the years, the development of new and increasingly powerful CFD simulation tools has allowed manufacturers in the aerospace industry to progress through the design life cycle in a more timely and cost-effective manner by supplementing or replacing experimental testing with CFD computations. Today, the demand for very accurate CFD predictions at an ever-increasing level of detail is the driving force for the development of highly accurate simulation techniques able to predict not only overall flow features, but also local values of the quantities of interest. High-order methods, (e.g. h/p spectral or Discontinuous Galerkin, Residual Distribution Schemes) that minimise numerical errors can provide more accurate predictions with adaptive techniques for convection-diffusion problems using local HPM methods (H for grid, P for accuracy of shape function, M for model) have become one of the main research field in CFD for the development of highly accurate flow simulations, particularly for solving the Navier-Stokes equations with different levels of turbulence modeling. In addition sensitivity analysis addressing method parameters as well as operational uncertainties are also of first interest to improve accuracy of flow simulations. These research areas are addressed in a number of EC projects, and outside of this contractual context.One of the many examples is the ANADE research program within the 7th EC Framework. The minisymposium will give an overview of the achievements of the project performed by academia and industry addressing the following topics:

· High order methods for complex flow physics simulation
· Error estimation, including adjoint-based, truncation error-based and flow feature based
· Mesh adaptation techniques, local adaptation and remeshing
· Methods for sensitivity analysis
· Steady and unsteady RANS flows
· Scale resolved flows (DNS, LES)

Our ambition is to provide an open forum for the communication on these topics.

In recent years there have been several attempts to extend the classical high-order finite element method to general meshes made of polygons (in 2D) or polyhedra (in 3D). Among these methodologies, we mention the Virtual Element Method, the Weak Galerkin Method, the Hybrid-High Order Method, and the HDG methods. The aim of this Minisymposium is to bring together researchers in this field to compare the methods, find similarities and differences, and try to understand which methods are better suited for some classical problems.

Non-boundary-fitted discretization methods do not require meshes to conform to the boundary of the domain on which the problem is defined. Their primary goal is to increase the geometric flexibility of discretization schemes and to alleviate meshing related obstacles. Instantiations of non-boundary-fitted techniques have gained importance in many applications, e.g., to resolve multi-phase flow interfaces in CFD, to deal with trimmed CAD surfaces in isogeometric analysis, to prevent mesh updating and mesh distortion effects in optimization, or to handle fluid-structure interaction problems involving large displacements and contact.

This mini-symposium aims at bringing together researchers from across the entire computational mechanics community to discuss and exchange new developments and results in non-boundary-fitted technologies. Questions of interest include, but are not limited to, techniques for the faithful representation of the immersed geometry (recently grouped together under the term immersogeometric analysis), accurate quadrature variants in intersected elements, accurate and stable enforcement of constraints along immersed boundaries and interfaces, the use of specially tailored basis functions, higher-order accuracy and high-fidelity analysis with non-boundary-fitted methods, the treatment of evolving/moving domains or interfaces, the effect of intersected elements on standard computational mechanics technology, and new fields of application in solid and fluid mechanics, multi-physics, and optimization.

The estimation of limit states for civil and mechanical engineers is an important task in an  attempt to perform safety- and life assessment of structures under thermo-mechanical loading, which may cause severe inelastic straining.

This task is virtually impossible to perform following cumbersome and time consuming evolutionary methods which, additionally, require the complete knowledge of the loading history. Mostly, however, only variation intervals of the loads are known. Thus, it is important to be able to produce margins of safe service conditions for structures, as well as for structural material, against excessive inelastic deformations.

Methods that aim towards this end, avoiding step-by-step analysis, are called Direct Methods; they are also applicable to the Optimum Design of Structures and Materials. They are non-evolutionary, and although such methods have existed for some time, they are attracting an increasing interest from scientists and researchers, based on new mathematical formulations and new developments on numerical analysis.

The aim of the proposed minisymposium is to bring people together, from all over the world, interested in the development of Direct Methods, to discuss and examine recent developments in the field and to explore how their innovative use can provide new insights into different engineering applications.

We plan to organize a mini-symposium focusing on mesoscopic methods for modeling of complex fluids and soft matter at the mesoscale regime. It will include talks on theory, algorithms and diverse applications of Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics (CGMD), Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD), Smoothed DPD (SDPD), Fluctuating Hydrodynamics (FH), Lattice Boltzamann Methods (LBM), Langevin Dynamics (LD) and other mesoscopic methods. Atomistic simulation techniques allow precise reconstruction of molecular structures and can capture all the atomistic details of a molecular system. However, in many applications of biological systems and soft matter physics, it is computationally prohibitive to produce large-scale or long-time effects with atomistic simulations. As a matter of fact, when only mesoscopic structures of molecules or their coarse-grained properties are of practical interest, it may not be necessary toexplicitly take into account all the atomistic details of materials. To this end, mesoscopic methods have been developed to bridge the gap between microscopic and macroscopic worlds. On one hand, mesoscopic methods drastically simplify the atomistic dynamics by eliminating fast variables and preserving the behaviors of slow variables. With less degrees of freedom, the mesoscopic modeling provides an economical simulation path to capture the observable properties of complex fluid systems on larger spatial and temporal scales beyond the capacity of conventional atomistic simulations. On the other hand, mesoscopic modeling correctly captures the thermal fluctuations at the mesoscopic regimes as the corresponding correlations are responsible for interesting phenomena that cannot be captured by mean- eld theories.
With increasing attention on macromolecules, biomaterials and soft matter research, the mesoscopic modeling has become a rapidly expanding methodology in recent years. This mini-symposium will bring together the researchers working on mesoscopic modeling of complex fluids and soft matter materials to share insights and to discuss progress of key challenges in this field.
 

The main goal of this minisimposium is to be a place of discussion and presentation applications on computer algebra systems (symbolic computational tools) like Maple, Mathematica, Reduce and others for analytical and numerical-analytical solutions of solid mechanics problems. This may include static and dynamic, linear and nonlinear, isotropic and anisotropic problems and also solving any arising mathematical problems: investigation in convergence of series in solutions, computer instability etc., but are not limited to listed topics.

Kinetic models have emerged as a comprehensive and versatile modeling paradigm in many applications in science and engineering, e.g. rarefied-gas dynamics, crowd dynamics, plasma physics, dispersed-particle flows, chemotaxis, galactic dynamics, etc.

Accurate numerical approximation and analysis of kinetic models generally pose fundamental challenges. Kinetic theories typically lead to high-dimensional equations,in which interactions manifest themselves as complicated non-linear integro-differential operators. Such high-dimensional problems represent a daunting challenge for numerical-approximation methods. On the other hand, kinetic theories in general possess fundamental structural properties, related to trends toward equilibrium and corresponding hydrodynamic (continuum) limits. Such structural properties can be exploited to derive efficient numerical approximations.

The aim of this mini-symposium is to assemble researchers in the area of modeling, analysis and simulation of kinetic theories, in order to discuss recent developments, to explore open issues, and to foster cross-fertilization. The envisaged range of topics spans (but is not limited to):

- Moment methods

- Particle and lattice-based simulation methods

- Structure-preserving discretization techniques

- Adaptive approximation techniques

- Modeling, analysis and validation of (non-)classical transport equations

- Scale-bridging methods

- Hydrodynamics limits and equilibrium behavior

This paper is about the numerical solution of the acoustic wave equation in heterogeneous media. This equation is written using spatial and temporal differential operators for the P field of compression which is a function of the spatial and temporal coordinates. The time derivative is solved using a second order approximation by finite difference operators focused. Moreover the partial derivatives are calculated using the pseudospectral method. By applying the results obtained, it is working to implement a greater number of dimensions using the same numerical solutions considering the fact that the spatial part is three-dimensional.

The Boundary Element Method is an attractive alternative to the Finite Element Method especially for problems that involve large volume to surface ratio as for example applications in geomechanics or fluid‐structure  interaction.

The  aim of the mini-symposium is to present recent advances including the direct use of CAD data via isogeometric methods, the efficient simulation of inhomogeneous and non-linear material  behaviour,  the  efficient coupling of subregions, enriched BEM formulations and fast methods..
 

In recent years high-order volume discretization methods have risen to prominence in many fields involving wave propagation in the time domain, due both to their efficiency for propagating waves long distances with minimal dispersion and their ability to exploit modern high-performance computing architectures. However, the construction of reliable numerical methods for problems in elasticity is in many ways more challenging than for other systems due to the complexity of typical elastic media and the importance of boundary waves. The participants in this minisymposium will describe their recent work on the development of such methods and their application to challenging problems. Applications of high order methods to the simulation of earthquakes, seismic imaging, and nondestructive testing are all encouraged.

The great success of practical computational engineering for advanced problems in solid mechanics stimulates the ongoing research in this emerging area. However, only a few partial mathematical convergence proofs and stability/robustness studies exist in this challenging field. Consequently many fundamental questions related to reliable and effective numerical simulations in nonlinear mechanics are still open. 

The success of mixed finite element formulations in linear elasticity with focus on the accuracy of the stress variable motivates new research leading to novel discretization schemes. This and recent surprising  advantages of related nonconforming finite element methods in nonlinear partial differential equations with guaranteed lower eigenvalue bounds  or lower energy bounds in convex minimization problems suggest the investigation of mixed and simpler generalized mixed finite element methods such as discontinuous Petrov-Galerkin schemes for linear elasticity as well as for nonlinear elasticity based on isotropic and anisotropic polyconvex energy densities.  

Combinations of least-squares finite element methods with those of hybridized methods recently led to discontinuous Petrov Galerkin (dPG) FEMs. They minimize a residual inherited from a piecewise ultra weak formulation in a non-standard localized dual norm. 

However, there exist many other emerging new schemes which lead to progress in reliable and robust applications of finite element methods to complex engineering problems. The minisymposium is open to new ideas and schemes that describe non-standard numerical methods for solutions in solid mechanics.

The purpose of this session is to bring together researchers who successfully develop techniques for solving structural and multidisciplinary optimization problems (single and multi-objective). We encourage new research into all aspects of the optimal design of structures as well as multidisciplinary design optimization where the involved disciplines deal with the analysis of solids, fluids or other field problems.

This special session aims to provide a forum for researchers from Theoretical developments for single or multi-objective optimization as well as their application for solving real engineering problems. Submissions presenting novel developments or critical reviews are welcome.

Topics to be covered include (but are not limited to):

• Optimization applications in automobile design, aircraft design, manufacturing, etc...
• Numerical Optimization Techniques
• Experimental Optimization Techniques
• Shape and Topology Optimization
• Structural Optimization
• Surrogate-based Optimization
• Multidisciplinary Optimization
• Multi-objective Optimization
• Robust and Reliability-based Design Optimization

Key words:  Evolutionary Algorithms, Genetic Algorithms, Metaheuristics, Computational Methods, Civil Engineering, Construction Management, Optimum Design, Robust Design.

The main objective of this symposium is to bring together researchers and to generate interest in presenting papers on new approaches, in the field of evolutionary algorithms and metaheuristics in civil engineering and construction management.

The communications must address evolutionary algorithms and metaheuristics applied in solving optimum design problems in civil engineering, construction management and related topics [1,2,3].

Evolutionary algorithms are an interdisciplinary research area comprising several paradigms inspired by the Darwinian principle of evolution. The current stage of research considers, among others, the following paradigms: Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Evolution Strategies, Differential Evolution, etc. in addition to other metaheuristic paradigms such as Particle Swarm Optimization or Ant Colony Optimization.

Applications of these optimization methods in civil engineering and construction management are welcomed, both for single-objective and multi-objective optimization problems [4].

Topics to be covered (but are not limited to) are:

- In the civil engineering area contents related to structural design (e.g.: concrete and/or steel structures, etc.)[5], geotechnics, acoustics, hydraulics, and infrastructure are welcome.

- In the construction management area related content can be project management, planning, coordination and control of projects, cost and time management, among others.

- Development aspects such as including surrogate modeling, parallelization, performance comparisons among methods, etc., are encouraged.

Key words: Structural optimization, Topology optimization, Uncertainty

This mini-symposium is seeking to create an excellent opportunity and provide a well communication platform to bring together researchers, who are working in a broad range of aspects of structural optimization (size, shape and topology optimization) methods and applications. We particularly encourage submissions addressing recent advances in topology optimization of interdisciplinary areas spanning structures, materials and mechanisms. We therefore invite and appreciate the submissions in, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Size, shape and topology optimization methods
• Structural optimization under uncertainty (Robust and reliability)
• Multi-material and Multi-physics structural optimization methods
• Application of Structural optimization in bio engineering
• Application of Structural optimization in nanotechnology
• Application of Structural optimization in computational design of materials
• Application of Structural optimization for design of mechanisms
• Sampling and surrogate modelling in design optimization

The session will mainly concern about the structural health monitoring techniques and algorithms for damage detection, identification and reliability progress. It covers theoretical and computational issues, applications in structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, mechanical engineering, as well as other related engineering disciplines. This special session welcomes all contributions related to the structural health monitoring techniques; comparison of the new smart sensing techniques with the past ones in terms of engineering applications; theoretical and experimental modal identification, linear and nonlinear system identification, statistical system identification methods for parameter and state estimation, model updating and correlation, Bayesian calibration-validation-uncertainty quantification of structural models, stochastic simulation techniques for state estimation and model class selection, robust response and reliability updating using measurements, optimal strategies for experimental design, optimal sensor and actuator location methods, structural prognosis techniques.

Identifying the correct constitutive parameters of materials is a key aspect in engineering, especially when numerical models are used to reproduce complex manufacturing processes or highly non-linear materials. With the latest advances and the increasing application of full-field measurements, new techniques and strategies for inverse parameter identification have been presented. Finite element model updating  (FEMU), virtual fields method (VFM), reciprocity gap method (RGM) and dissipation gap method (DGM) are examples of methods recently developed for the purpose of identifying parameters of material constitutive models. The majority of these methods use optimization techniques to identify the parameters of non-linear models. Additionally, filtering techniques and sensitivity analysis are also relevant tools for particular strategies.

This topic has numerous applications in all sciences and engineering disciplines, and is of utmost importance for the ECCOMAS congress. In this mini-symposium, all aspects related to these issues are discussed. Academic as well as engineering contributions are welcome. Items that fall within the scope of the conference and of this mini-symposium, from both numerical and experimental standpoints, are listed as follows.

Topics

Contributions on the following subjects are welcomed:

• identification of constitutive, friction, heat transfer or damage parameters;
• identification of boundary conditions or unknown process conditions;
• design of experimental procedures and measurement techniques for inverse analysis;
• numerical methods and algorithms for parameter identification analysis;
• reliability assessment;
• robust analysis and techniques for parameter identification;
• optimisation under uncertainty;
• new methods and algorithms for deterministic optimisation;
• integrated approaches for parameter identification;
• software development for parameter identification in solids;

Due to the large range of application across many engineering fields, additive manufacturing and 3D printing technologies made a rapid development for design in industry. However for complex geometries and sophisticated technical processes still a need for fundamental research in computational modeling and numerical simulation exists. These are related to the simulation of manufacturing processes, material modeling, application of advanced materials, multiphysics modeling, multiscale structures, optimization, extremal material design, the integration of modeling in the design process etc.

In this context special emphasis is put on shape and topology optimization methods which have advanced to an extremely high level; routinely researchers perform optimization for mechanical, thermal, fluidic, acoustic, electromagnetic and photonic structures and materials. It is apparent that optimization is an ideal field for the application of additive manufacturing and 3D printing. On the other hand topology optimization, showing great potential for weight savings or performance improvements, often results in quite complex geometries that may be challenging to manufacture using conventional manufacturing and machining processes. Novel additive manufacturing technologies partially remedy this problem but still have restrictions for example concerning minimum member sizes, thermal distortion, requirement for support structures, internal cavities.

The main objective of the minisymposium is to discuss recently developed modeling and simulation techniques of additive manufacturing and 3D printing processes. A special focus is laid on the development and application of structural optimization, in particular utilizing topology optimization schemes, which have a potential for application in additive manufacturing.

Ultrasonic guided waves (UGW) have significant potential for structural health monitoring (SHM) and nondestructive testing (NDT). Techniques involving UGW are expanding rapidly to many different areas of manufacturing and in-service inspection. This is due to their relatively long propagation distance and sensitivity to anomalies along the propagation path. Despite these advantages, UGW techniques are often complicated by the existence of a multitude of propagating modes, wave dispersion, attenuation, etc.

Nowadays, computational methods are widely adapted for the simulation of UGW propagation to help improve in-situ experimental results, to contribute to the reduction of false alarms, and consequently to make better decisions. Different methods have already been developed and are currently in use; they allow for:

• an understanding of  waves’ behavior even in complex waveguides,
• the simulation of  interactions between waves and realistic defects (with arbitrary forms and sizes),
• the simulation of the generation of a pure mode,
• the optimization of the size and sensitivity of sensors and actuators,
•  …

This mini-symposium is an opportunity for NDT and Monitoring researchers to present (or held) presentations concerning computing (development, simulation and validations) in UGW and linked techniques. It is also the occasion for other researchers  coming from wide fields in computing to discover ultrasonic guided waves.

Gradient-based methods are essential for efficient CFD optimisation is method, an essential ingredient is the adjoint method which allows to compute these gradients at near constant cost, independent of the number of design variables. Adjoint methods appear in two forms: continuous and discrete. This Minisymposium is laying emphasis to a) the robustness and versatility of the adjoint solvers, b) its application to industrial and unsteady flows c)  the efficient but flexible and automatic parametrisation of arbitrary shapes, d) the imposition of design constraints in either a CAD-based or CAD-free way and e) the integration of shape and topology optimization. Industrial applications will be presented.

When performing real life optimization or parameter identification, usually some level of uncertainty is intrinsically present in the models used. Such uncertainty can be present in the measured boundary and/or initial conditions, physical properties of the media, or even the mathematical model that does not represent the physical phenomena with a high degree of fidelity. When analysis of candidate solutions is very expensive or time consuming, it is a common practice to use metamodels or low fidelity models to represent a more complex problem, in order to save time and computational resources in large scale optimizations and inverse problems. Thus, there is a recognized and rapidly growing need for the development of reliable, accurate and computationally efficient methods to deal with such uncertainties in inverse problems, design and optimization of real life nonlinear multi-disciplinary problems.

The proposed minisymposium should bring together international experts on these subjects and serve as a forum for comparing the capabilities and drawbacks of conceptually different algorithms, thus advancing the fields of inverse problems, design and optimization under uncertainties

During the last decades evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have become an everyday tool in aerodynamic design/optimization problems. EAs can handle complex, constrained, multi-objective optimization problems with noisy objective functions using any analysis software as "black-box".

However, they require a vast number of evaluations to reach the optimal solutions even in problems with a few design variables. Since, in aerodynamic optimization, each evaluation involves a CFD, CSM, etc analysis, EAs become computationally prohibitive for real-world applications.

Therefore, there has been a raising interest in techniques that may reduce the computational cost of an EA-based optimization.  The most popular among these is the use of surrogate evaluation models (or metamodels).

Metamodels are low cost approximations to the costly analysis model (CFD or CSM software etc.) able to provide a fast and sufficiently accurate estimation of the quantities of interest of the simulation (e.g., the aerodynamic coefficients) and, hence, of the objective function used in the optimization process.

This minisymposium aims at collecting and disseminating new ideas in surrogate modeling and surrogate-based optimization for aerodynamic design.  Emphasis is laid on the development and use of fast and efficient metamodels for CFD-based real-world industrial optimization problems.

During three dimensional (3D) cell culture experiments, micro-fluorescent beads are commonly used as quantitative indicators of the mechanical interaction between a cell and its surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM). However, it is unclear how to accurately translate the information of randomly spaced bead displacements back to the actual mechanical signals produced by the cell e.g., traction forces on the ECM as it migrates. With the help of quadratic programming optimization, an innovative 3D cell traction microscopy (CTM) is developed to solve this type of inverse problem. It allows for efficient computation of cellular tractions in a 3D linearly elastic environment, while enforcing the force and moment balance of the cell. This new technique facilitates the study of cell-ECM mechanical interaction and mechano-sensing in both single cell and multicellular contexts.

The solution of large-scale inverse problems is fundamental to a wide variety of applications. However, the solution of the inverse problem is often computationally prohibitive due to high-dimensional parameter spaces and expensive forward models. The use of established numerical and statistical methods that have become routine for small or moderate-sized problems poses challenges for large-scale problems. Despite this difficulty, there is a crucial need for the development of scalable algorithms for the solution of large-scale inverse problems to aid in prediction and decision-making.

Although computational design optimization techniques, either in the form of topology optimization or boundary-variation approaches, have been explored in a large number of applications, such techniques are most successful in cases where there is a quite large sensitivity in the performance of a device to changes in the geometry. In this respect, wave propagation problems stands out as a class of problems that are particularly well suited to optimization. The presence of resonance, diffraction or directivity effects, for instance, often leads to a high sensitivity to changes in the geometry or the material properties. Closely related to design optimization problems, in the sense that similar techniques often are used, are inverse problems involving mechanical or electromagnetic waves.

This minisymposium is aimed at communication about recent development of theory, methods, and applications of computational design optimization and inverse problems for problems that somehow involve wave propagation. A non-exclusive list of example applications include

• antennas, microwave devices, waveguides, and optics devices;

• loudspeakers, mufflers, musical instruments;

• medical imaging, interface and crack identification, geophysical inversion.
 

Numerous models encountered in science and engineering remain nowadays, despite the impressive progresses attained recently in computational simulation techniques, intractable when the usual and well experienced discretization techniques are applied for their numerical simulation. Thus, different challenging issues are waiting for the proposal of new alternative advanced simulation techniques, the brute force approach being no more a valuable alternative. A first challenging issue concerns the treatment of highly multidimensional models arising from quantum mechanics or kinetic theory models of solids or fluids, including micro and nano-structured complex fluids or stochastic problems with numerous variables. The main challenge in the treatment of this kind of models is related to the curse of dimensionality because when one applies standard mesh based discretization the number of degrees of freedom involved scales exponentially with the dimension of the space concerned.

Another issue concerns the solution of transient multiscale models (usually strongly non linear and coupled, and always of high size). These models arise in computational mechanics (involving a large variety of constitutive behaviors, couplings etc.). In this context, the use of standard incremental discretization techniques becomes inefficient from the computational time viewpoint. In general, these models involve different characteristic times and space scales ranging through several decades.

Moreover, in the context of problems optimization of inverse identification many direct problems must be solved. Again, alternative advanced computational techniques are urgently needed for solving parametric partial differential equations. Examples of dimension reduction are POD, RB and PGD among many other techniques. Moreover, when using any kind of reduced modeling, verification is a crucial point because we are introducing an inevitable error whose quantification is extremely important in engineering design.

In the session, the most recent advances attained by the former techniques will be pointed out and new incipient alternatives explored.

A persistent trend in computational science and engineering is that problems become larger in scale and mathematical models more complex. Consequently, performing accurate simulations more than ever requires robust error estimation tools as well as suitable adaptive strategies. Nowadays, the field
of error estimation and adaptivity, known as model verification, goes far beyond classical discretization error assessment and mesh refinement in the FEM context. A very hot research topic is adaptive modeling, where the aim is to adaptively control surrogate models which have been obtained by model
reduction techniques.

These techniques may be designed for:
‐ reducing the complexity of the model itself, such as multiscale approaches or couplings between hierarchical models;
‐ reducing the complexity of the solution, such as POD, PGD, or reduced bases approaches.

In order to apply such techniques securely, it is compulsory to address aspects which are relevant for engineering purposes, such as goal-­‐oriented procedures, the computation of guaranteed (upper and lower) error bounds for a large class of physical problems, or the control of errors due to uncertainty.
The objective of the mini‐symposium is to present the recent fundamental advances in this area, both in error estimation and adaptive methods, that aim at providing tool to control model order reduction effectively. We anticipate contributions on the following topics applied to reduced order modeling:

-estimation of discretization and modeling errors;
‐ stability, convergence and optimality analysis;
‐ goal-­‐oriented and adjoint/duality-­‐based techniques;
­‐ method leading to guaranteed error bounds;
‐ applications to linear, nonlinear, coupled, or time-­‐dependent problems.

Surrogate modelling has become a very important aspect of microwave and electromagnetics design, as it can reduce the execution time of an optimization cycle dramatically. The aim of this minisymposium is to present a forum at which a number of state-of-the-art applications of surrogate modelling can be presented.

Reduced order modeling techniques are efficient techniques for the numerical approximation of problems involving the repeated solution of differential equations arising from engineering and applied sciences. Relevant applications include partial differential equations (PDEs) depending on several parameters, PDE-constrained optimization, and optimal control and inverse problems. To reduce the computational complexity, reduced-order models aim at replacing the original large-dimension, high-fidelity numerical problem by a reduced problem of substantially smaller dimension. Strategies to generate the reduced problem from the high-fidelity one can be manifold, depending on the context. 

This minisymposium focuses on the particular challenges related with model reduction for PDE-constrained optimization and inverse problems, that can be faced for  parameter optimization, multi-objective and robust optimization, optimal control, feedback control, optimal design, identification, data assimilation or other PDE-constrained optimization and inverse problems. Applications include fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, geophysics, electromagnetics and acoustics.

The aim of this mini-symposium is to constitute a forum for the exchange of latest research developments and ideas in the fields of Computational Methods for Structural Dynamics. The topics to be covered will include, but not limited to, Linear or nonlinear analysis of structures; Computational analysis by FEM, BEM, Mesh free, analytical or semi-analytical methods; Time or frequency domain analysis; Free or forced vibrations; Geometrical or material nonlinearities; Structures made from classic or composite materials; Viscoelastic beams; Dynamic response of piles; Dynamic inelastic analysis of structures; Earthquake response; etc. It is anticipated that the Symposium will promote the dissemination of research results and ideas on Structural Dynamic Analysis procedures and their applications.

Key words: beams, non-linear analyses, cross-section deformation, finite rotations.

Beam-like structures are widely employed in practically all areas of engineering practice, from the construction industry to offshore and aerospace structures. Beam structural models have always attracted the engineering and scientific community due to their simplicity (one-dimensionality), computational efficiency and ability to provide a physical insight into the problems, making it even possible to obtain closed-form analytical solutions. Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in “advanced” beam models for static, stability, vibration and dynamic analyses, including “geometrically exact” theories and thin-walled beam models allowing for cross-section in-plane and out-of-plane (warping) deformation.

Following the success of the homonym Mini Symposiums in the ECCOMAS 2012 and WCCM 2014 conferences, this session aims at bringing together researchers working in the development and application of advanced beam models, thus providing an international expert forum aimed at discussing the most recent ideas and strategies in this increasingly broad scientific domain, making it possible to be exposed to its cutting-edge achievements and to have a clear picture of its current state-of-the-art.

The Mini Symposium will cover (without being limited to) the following topics:

·       Buckling and vibration

·       Post-buckling and collapse

·       Nonlinear dynamics

·       Thin-walled members

·       Steel and composite (steel-concrete and FRP) members

·       Large displacements and finite rotations

Key words:  Computational Mechanics, Dynamics of the Solids Systems with dry friction.

The main aim of the minisymposium is exchanging of the new ideas and achievements between research groups that are developing the models and investigations methods of dynamics of the solids systems with dry friction and solve real dynamics problems. Special attention will be given to developing of the effective computational methods of dynamics problems solution under conditions of combined kinematics when the rubbing solids are participated simultaneously in the rolling, spinning and sliding motions.

The linear structural dynamics of rotating structures, e.g., turbomachinery/helicopter blades and rotors, wind turbines, etc., is now quite well established both with and without fluid-structure interaction.  Nonlinear effects in these problems have also been considered in the past but, owing to current computational capabilities and methods, current research in this area is rapidly growing to include a broader range of nonlinearities: local structural nonlinearities, nonlinear geometrical effects, etc. Moreover, computational methods, such as reduced-order modeling, adapted to this nonlinear context are also being developed. These efforts to capture nonlinear effects are fundamental for performing robust design and robust optimization of future rotating structures.

The mini-symposium focuses on all aspects of nonlinear dynamics of rotating structures including:

• Modeling
• Numerical methods and computational models
• Reduced-order models
• Uncertainty quantification
• Experimental identification
• Design and optimization
• Mistuning
• Instabilities for structures and fluid-structure systems
• Nonlinear damping modeling (e.g., friction dampers)

The objective of this symposium is to discuss new advances in numerical methods for linear and non-linear dynamics and wave propagation. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: new implicit and explicit time-integration methods for structural dynamics, wave propagation and impact problems; new space and time discretization methods for dynamical systems; high-order accurate methods; methods with reduced numerical dispersion; filtering spurious oscillations; adaptive methods and space and time error estimators, application of new numerical methods to engineering dynamics and wave propagation problems, and others.

The scope of the "Minisymposium on Computational Simulation of Smart Structures and Materials" is to provide a comprehensive overview of modeling methods and computational simulation techniques for all types of so-called smart materials and structures. Special emphasis is on the scientific exchange among specialists working in the fields of structural mechanics, materials science, actuator and sensor technology, and control of smart structures. The Symposium is focused on the methods, not on a specific field of application. Therefore, scientists from all areas are welcome. Thus, it is the purpose of the Symposium to enhance the transfer of methods and experience among different fields.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Modeling and computational issues, e.g.
•    Modeling of smart structures and materials
•    Finite Element technology and implementation for statics, stability and dynamics of smart structures
•    Geometrically and physically linear or nonlinear simulation of smart structures
•    Experimental investigation of smart materials and structures
•    Identification of material and system parameters
•    Modeling and simulation of nonlinear properties in smart materials and systems
•    Modeling and simulation of hysteretic material and structural response
•    Control of smart systems with nonlinear and hysteretic properties
•    Damage, fatigue, aging and fracture mechanics of smart materials and systems
•    Micromechanical and thermodynamical modeling of smart materials
•    Application to microsystem technology and nanotechnology

Computational and experimental work on, e.g.
•    Shape and vibration control
•    Noise and acoustics control
•    Stability and flutter control
•    Structural health monitoring
•    Energy harvesting
•    Optimization of smart structures

Modeling, analysis, and design concepts using smart materials, e.g.
•    Piezoelectric materials
•    Magnetostrictive materials
•    Electrostrictive materials
•    Shape memory alloys
•    ER and MR fluids

Applications of active structural control in aerospace, marine, automotive, civil engineering, commercial systems etc.

Key words: Continuum mechanics, elastic stability, dynamics, bifurcations

In the parametric analysis of mechanical stability of elastic systems modelled by partial differential equations, especially the static (Euler's) and dynamic (Bolotin's) stability analysis methods have been widely applied. As is well known, the static method concerns the existence of nontrivial solutions around the trivial equilibrium position of the system, while the dynamic method concentrates on the behaviour of small complex-valued time-harmonic free vibrations around that equilibrium position.

Concerning the dynamic method, typically the mechanical stability of an elastic system is lost at a bifurcation point of the natural frequency curve, making the study of the behaviour of these points interesting from the viewpoint of mechanical stability in engineering applications.

Contributions to this minisymposium are welcome on topics such as harmonic vibrations and stability, stability criteria for solutions of partial differential equations, theory of bifurcations, and especially the applications of bifurcation analysis to both stationary and moving structures.

The proposed session is devoted to the interaction between moving loads or vehicles on beams with discrete supports or distributed foundations and to its application to railway track modelling and design, both from the analytical and the computational points of view. It is widely recognized that a good performance with minimal maintenance of railway tracks has a decisive positive impact on the economic exploration of existing high-speed lines and on the possibility of extension of the present network. Moreover, the competitiveness of high-speed trains for travels of more than 900 km with respect to airplane depends on the increase of the average train velocity. However, for certain (high) velocity ranges the vibration amplitudes may deteriorate the infrastructures and endanger the passengers’ safety: the understanding and mitigation of such effects are relevant for the expansion of the high-speed lines network. It is known that, still in our days, the strongly nonlinear behaviour of some of the components of the vehicle-beam-foundation system, poses challenges to researchers, engineers and railway companies.

This thematic session intends to gather active researchers from the widest possible range of topics with a strong emphasis on the development or use of computational and/or analytical methods. A nonexhaustive set of topics adequate to be presented is: beam and foundation models, vehicle-beam interaction models, network of forces in the ballast bed, sleepers and rail pads, consideration of railhead irregularities (corrugations), damping strategies, three dimensional modelling, wave propagation, computation of critical velocities, rolling contact, related frictional and unilateral contact aspects, the effects of braking on a railway track, derailment and its catastrophic consequences, algorithms and numerical methods.

The scope of the session is broad. Presentations on realistic models for complex systems comprising large numbers of degrees of freedom and presentations more focused on models and strategies to simplify the analyses.

Key words: FGM and Composite Structures, Statics and Dynamics, Elastic Stability, Multiphysical Modeling and Analysis

The development of new finite elements and other solution techniques for modeling of linear and nonlinear behavior of Functionally Graded Material (FGM) beam, shell and solid structures is discussed. Elastostatics, vibration and elastic stability of structural components with continuously or discontinuously varying material properties are main issues. Further, homogenization procedures of varying material properties in beams, shells and solids are taken into account. The inclusion of effects like shear force and warping deformation, elastic foundation and axial forces represent interesting aspects of this mini-symposium. Multiphysical analyses (thermoelasticity, electro-thermal-structural problems, the Thomson and Seebeck effects, electromagnetic-structural problems) of the FGM structures are discussed and results of experimental studies are likewise welcome.

Current building codes and international guidelines define structural robustness as the ability of a structure to resist either natural or man-made extreme actions avoiding disproportionate collapse, namely the occurrence of collapse mechanisms involving a large part of structural system. In the last decade, the rate of research on structural robustness has significantly increased in response to the increasing number of extreme events such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Major advances in simulation and testing of structural robustness have been made, giving room to several computational procedures to be developed.

This Mini-Symposium is aimed at sharing findings of latest computational research on robustness assessment for different types of structures, including buildings, bridges, tunnels and earth retaining systems. Contributions on the following topics are welcome: dynamic modelling of materials; characterization of dynamic loads (e.g. blast, fire, impact); computational simulation of structural systems subjected to extreme actions; experimental testing for model development and validation; and deterministic and probabilistic approaches for robustness assessment.

This Mini-Symposium will focus on recent advances in the dynamics and the seismic response of Rocking and Self-centering Structures. Research on self-centering and rocking structures is currently proliferating. This unconventional seismic design methodology relies on a change in effective stiffness combined with utilization of the rotational inertia of the structure, hence it is inherently “dynamic” and, in principle, “damage-free”. The survival of many monumental structures over the centuries testify to the seismic resilience of rocking systems.

The main goals of this mini-symposium are to: present advances in structural dynamics of (different types of) rocking structures; review recently conducted experimental and analytical research; and discuss design and construction challenges. In addition, the MS will offer the opportunity to distinguish the similarities and the differences, in terms of the seismic behavior, between the several emerging “rocking”, “controlled-rocking”, or “self-centering” solutions. Papers on both monumental structures and modern structural systems are welcome.

Topics: 

o    Numerical Models for the Seismic Assessment of Historic Structures

o    Seismic vulnerability of historic & monumental structures & centers

o    Assessment of historic structures using non-destructive in-situ testing methods

o    Retrofit of monuments with linear viscous dampers

o    Monitoring and assessing structural damage in historic buildings

o    The use of passive seismic protection in structural rehabilitation

o    Case Studies of Monuments Restorations

o    Structural control of historic structures and buildings

o    Performance-based assessment of historic buildings using nonlinear pushover analysis

o    Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis in areas with historic monuments

Keywords: nonlinear dynamics, periodic and quasi-periodic oscillations, stability analysis, bifurcation analysis, nonlinear normal modes, numerical continuation, invariant manifold computation, damping nonlinearities.

All engineering structures undergo vibrations during operation, which may not only cause material fatigue and noise but also rupture at resonance. It is therefore a crucial engineering task to understand the underlying vibration mechanisms, to predict the dynamic behavior with sufficient accuracy, and, if necessary, to apply suitable means for vibration reduction. This task is significantly more difficult if nonlinearities arising, for instance, from large deflections, hysteretic material behavior or contact interactions are present. Nonlinear systems can exhibit a wide variety of dynamic phenomena which cannot be explained by linear theory as, e.g., jumps between multiple stable responses, interactions between widely-spaced modes, and bifurcations. Such nonlinear phenomena often cannot be neglected in modern engineering applications, and recent contributions in the literature show they can actually be used for improving the design, e.g., of sharp acoustic switches and rectifiers, vibration absorbers and energy harvesters.

This mini-symposium discusses the recent progress made on computational methods for vibration analysis of nonlinear systems, including (but not limited to) numerical continuation, bifurcation analysis, frequency-domain techniques, and novel developments in the area of nonlinear normal modes. More generally, the mini-symposium aims at discussing the dynamic phenomena introduced by nonlinearity, with a particular emphasis on nonconservative effects along with the appropriate computational techniques. Besides theoretical contributions, experimental studies and applications to real-life engineering systems are particularly encouraged.

This Minisymposium aims to present and discuss investigations in structural analysis and design, using numerical methods that may be associated with theoretical and experimental developments.

The scope is broad and includes studies of vibration problems and discrete and continuous systems subjected to static or dynamic loads.

Topics of interest:

* Structures of different types: beams, columns, frames, arches, plates, shells.

* Structures of various materials: homogeneous and composite materials

* Structures subjected to: vibration, static and dynamic loads: wind, earthquake, impact,...

* Damage assessment and structural reliability

KEY WORDS: structural analysis, static and dynamic loads, vibration, design, damage

The goal of this mini-symposium is to bring together the scientific communities of Computational Mechanics, Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics and to provide a forum for researchers in this field to discuss recent advances and challenges, in an effort to facilitate the exchange of ideas in these topics. The MS will raise the awareness of important application areas and the social impact of the scientific and technical fields involved.

The areas of coverage of this mini-symposium include, but are not limited to the following:

• Analysis and design of seismic resistant structures
• Constitutive modelling under earthquake loading
• Performance-based design of structures
• Seismic behavior of industrial facilities and pipelines
• Repair and retrofit of structures
• Seismic vulnerability assessment of structures
• Geotechnical earthquake engineering
• Soil dynamics
• Soil-structure interaction
• Seismic isolation systems
• Algorithms for structural health monitoring
• Seismic risk and reliability analysis
• Numerical methods for linear and non-linear dynamics
• Optimum design in structural dynamics and earthquake engineering
• Inverse problems in structural dynamics

Flexible and slender structures, like cables, towers, long-span bridges and tall buildings, may develop important dynamic phenomena under the external excitation of environmental and anthropic loads. Highamplitude linear and nonlinear oscillations may rise up due to different mechanisms of dynamic instability, often favoured by limited resources of structural dissipation and typically driven by resonance conditions, fluid-structure interactions, or dynamic bifurcations. For these reasons, flexible structures are frequently equipped with control systems with the aim of reducing the vibration level under safety or serviceability limits. Passive, active and semi-active control problems require accurate modelling of the coupled dynamics of the controlled structure, as well as the adoption of proper adaptive strategies assuring stability and control effectiveness also when system parameters change with time or are uncertain.

In this framework, the minisymposium focuses on the connected fields of nonlinear dynamics, structural stability and vibration control of flexible structures and aims at presenting recent advances on these topics, but also exchanging experiences, transferring knowledge and stimulating dialogue among expert and young researchers in the areas of theoretical and applied mechanics, structural engineering, control theory and computational methods. The minisymposium accommodates (but is not limited to) contributions dealing with traditional and innovative strategies of vibration mitigation, dynamic model formulation, numerical and experimental analyses, open research issues and case studies.

The inventive methods for earthquake structure response analysis and design are based on precise dynamic modeling and simulation. The up-to-date methods for multibody system dynamic simulation taking into account nonlinear behavior of the large flexible structures could be classified in three basic groups: floating reference frame, finite elements in relative coordinates; and absolute nodal coordinate formulation. The large structures and mechanical devices like skyscrapers, antenna, wind power generators, etc., are typical multibody systems consisting of rigid and flexible parts with nonlinear behavior. Shaking of their foundation because of ground wave propagation, as well as, the nonlinear interaction ground – structure basement could be effectively analyzed using the recent achievements in the multibody system dynamics simulation methodology. The forward dynamic analysis provides the designers with preliminary information for structural behavior and the effect of the design parameters.

The commercially available programs for dynamics simulation of flexible structures meet many difficulties including loss of precision, as well as incapability to provide long simulation process of the operational time. Development of problem oriented methods for dynamics simulation, analysis and optimization of structures subject to seismic excitation is of major importance for the practice.

The aim of the present mini-symposium is to meet scientists working on the problems of dynamics simulation of large flexible systems and to provide possibility for live discussion on the aforementioned problems. This event will be a precondition for establishment of scientific collaboration between scientific teams of different countries and development of common projects.

The following topics are proposed (but not limited):

1. Multibody System methodology for dynamics simulation of structures,

2. Methods of relative and absolute nodal coordinate formulation for simulation of large flexible systems,

3. Methods for numerical integration of large scale and stiff Ordinary Differential Equations and Differential Algebraic Equations,

4. Ground - structure basement interaction,

5. Base isolation, passive energy dissipation and active control for structural prevention of seismic excitation.

A special issue of the journal Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, Taylor & Francis is planned to collect the most attractive presentations.

Diagnosis of loss of stability of structures and of their postbuckling behavior is a challenging topic of both fundamental and applied research as well as of engineering practice. The complexity of many stability problems in engineering very often requires the use of advanced mathematical theories of stability and of sophisticated methods of computational mechanics. The rapid progress of computer efficiency has made it possible to tackle problems which previously were considered to be intractable. Detailed studies have to be based on consistent nonlinear formulations as well as on reliable and robust solution procedures. They are directed for instance to the determination of the load-carrying capacity of thin structures being influenced by initial imperfections, material behavior, geometry, and loading. Another field is the design sensitivity analysis of the initial postbuckling behavior of elastic structures, and related to this, the convertibility of such structures from imperfection sensitivity into insensitivity. These are just two examples of a very wide field including the loss of stability in the plastic material domain, dynamic instability, loss of stability of different types of structural members such as beams, panels, shells, etc.

In design practice earthquake-induced soil-foundation-structure interaction (SFSI) is hardly considered. At best usually linear SFSI is assumed. The influence of adjacent structures on the nonlinear seismic behaviour of a group of soil-foundation-structure systems is as good as ignored. Yet, the significant influence of nonlinear soil behaviour on the overall structural seismic performance prevails, particularly in regions with poor soil, as observed in almost all major earthquakes. Knowledge of whole system dynamics gives a more realistic resilient aseismic design.
The mini symposium addresses the latest research development on the interaction between single/multiple adjacent structures and nonlinear non-liquefiable and liquefiable soil. Experimental and numerical investigations are welcome.

Masonry composed of various materials (stone, earth, bricks, etc.) has been used in structures for thousands of years. As a consequence, a large stock of traditional/historical masonry structures exists internationally, ranging from simple dwellings to large edifices, bridges, castles and fortifications, and religious monuments. These structures, being exposed to the environmental pressures over a long time, are in different conditions due to ageing and disrepair; future risks including earthquake and climatic effects render the requirement of dependable assessment and life-cycle performance estimation a priority for their preservation as cultural heritage for the generations to come. Moreover, new masonry structures are constantly erected, which induce the need for appropriate design approaches. Whether a new or an existing structure is treated in the framework of a structural analysis, the simulation of masonry behaviour is not an easy task due to the inherent heterogeneity, material brittleness and uncertainty.

This Minisymposium focuses on the simulation of the behaviour of any type of structure (building, bridge, wall, etc.) composed of any type of masonry under static, dynamic or accidental action. Contributions are welcome, which are concerned with:

• Calibration/validation of masonry material models
• Seismic design/assessment of masonry structures
• Probabilistic/stochastic analysis of masonry structures
• Unreinforced masonry structures and monuments
• Environmental effects on masonry materials and structures
• Protection of monuments from climate-induced extreme events

Recent earthquakes, as the one that hit Fukushima in Japan in 2011 or the one that produced extensive damage in Turkish petrochemical facilities during the Kocaeli earthquake of 1999 or, more recently, the seismic events in May 2012 in Emilia (Italy), highlighted the increasing need of providing adequate protection to industrial installations.

Industrial facilities often store a large amount of hazardous material and, in case of seismic event, there is a high probability that accidental scenarios as fire, explosion, toxic or radioactive dispersion may occur. Moreover, as testified by past disasters, process plants, like process units, storage units and pipelines or piping systems, are characterized by higher levels of seismic risk than other types of installations. The consequences of such accidental scenarios can be disastrous in terms of casualties, economic losses and environmental damage. Industrial building are often characterized by peculiar structural configurations, different limit states with respect to the civil buildings, and different mass distributions that needs particular attention during the modelling and analyzing phase.

The scope of the mini symposium is to review the recent research works on the modelling, analyzing and verification methodologies adopted for the design of seismic retrofit intervention of existing industrial structures or the design of new ones.

Contributions to modelling problem solving, new linear and non-linear analysis methods, innovative solutions for the seismic retrofit of existing industrial buildings or design of new one are very welcome.

In the past thirty years, the earthquakes that occurred in many countries have dramatically shown that a resilient city (in the actual and scientific sense) was never used as a tool in risk mitigation and development strategies, and the policies have not considered an oriented prevention approach.

The damage suffered by buildings (both private and public) has been the main source of losses. In the long term, the return to the normal conditions has been achieved only with considerable economic investment. If these resources had been used in mitigation, the policies would have produced significant economic growth and avoided many casualties.

The scope of the mini symposium is to review the recent research effort of the scientific community about the following (but not limited) topics:

• Innovative, simple, fast, readily available, and economically sustainable retrofitting strategies.

• Retrofitting strategies and definitions of simple and optimised rules for planning, based on scientific results.

• Definition of rational criteria for risk-mitigation policies.

• Allocation of the resources based on the optimised life cycles of the structures and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods.

• Seismic vulnerability assessment and retrofit of structures.

• Structural control, monitoring and assessment of structural damage.

• Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis.

• Case Studies.

The scope of this minisymposium is to review the recent advances in stochastic computational methods in engineering and applied mechanics. The minisymposium will be mainly focused on the development of the Stochastic Finite Element Methods and other computational approaches employed for the uncertainty modeling like Stochastic Boundary Elements, Stochastic Finite Differences or also stochastic meshless methodologies. The work containing various numerical aspects of the Monte-Carlo simulation method, the stochastic perturbation approaches, the stochastic polynomial chaos methods as well as spectral analyses will fit perfectly into this minisymposium. The submissions devoted to theoretical aspects of random fields and processes modeling adjacent to the uncertainty in mechanics of both homogeneous and heterogeneous solids, fluids as well as in the multiphase and/or multiscale mixtures are invited. The papers and presentations devoted to the practical aspects of the statistical and stochastic methods are also welcome, where uncertainty in engineering problems plays essential role or where the reliability analysis is included.

Engineering problems typically involve non-deterministic information in various forms and of various nature. To ensure a faultless life of the products/systems and to provide decision margins, complex technological installations, engineering systems and components have to be designed to cope with risk and uncertainty (e.g. extreme load conditions, inherently uncertain processes and human errors). Realistic consideration and treatment of uncertainties of various nature and scale is a key issue in the development of robust engineering solutions.
The solution of such problems rely on the availability of efficient numerical methods. While new algorithms are still arising in different fields, Monte Carlo methods are now established and ready for applications in a real practical engineering setting, thanks to the advent of modern computer technology. In addition, considerable advancements in numerical efficiency have significantly increased their practical applicability in the recent past. Nevertheless many issues are still encountered in real applications and new expectations or endeavours are forming upon recognition of the availability of this powerful tool.
This mini-symposium aims at bringing together researchers, academics and practicing engineers, providing a forum for discussion on theoretical and practical issues in the development, implementation and scalability of Monte Carlo methods. Contributions to theory development, applications, and implementation in engineering practice, are welcome. The issues of numerical efficiency and applicability to industry-size problems are of particular interest.

Safety critical systems are characterized by inherent robustness and flexibility as essential features for a faultless life of structures and systems under uncertain and changing conditions. An implementation of these features requires a comprehensive consideration of varying levels of uncertainty and
variability from different sources. Variability is inherent in many natural systems, and therefore cannot be reduced. Uncertainty is also always present since it is not possible to perfectly model or predict real world situations, although such uncertainty can in theory be reduced and better characterized and quantified.
These unavoidable sources of uncertainties must be accounted for appropriately to guarantee that the components or systems will continue to perform satisfactory despite fluctuations. This poses a challenge for a suitable mathematical modelling and an efficient analysis in particular, to problematic cases, which involve, for example, limited information, human factors, subjectivity and experience, imprecise measurements, unclear physics, etc. In addition, decision makers still need to make clear choices based on the available information. They need to trust the methodology adopted to propagate the uncertainties through multi-disciplinary analysis, in order to quantify the risk with the current level of information and to avoid wrong decisions due to artificial restrictions introduced by the modelling. In this context, probabilistic, nonprobabilistic as well as mixed concepts of imprecise probabilities have been developed, applied and achieved a new level of acceptance.
This mini-symposium aims at bringing together researchers, academics and practicing engineers concerned with the various forms of advanced engineering analysis and designs considering uncertainty. The issues of numerical efficiency and applicability to industry-size problems are of particular interest. These may involve probabilistic including Bayesian approaches, interval methods, Fuzzy methods, imprecise probabilities and further concepts. The contributions may address specific technical or mathematical details, conceptual developments and solution strategies, individual solutions, and may also provide overviews and comparative studies.

The development of suitable stochastic representations and methodologies for inverse identification is widely recognized as a cornerstone for predictive uncertainty quantification. One issue of great scientific interest is, for instance, the synthetic representation of information in multiscale analysis, where uncertainties are essentially exchanged back and forth across scales. This symposium focuses on computational stochastic analysis for uncertainty modelling and identification for complex structures and multiscale/multiphysics systems. Contributions to the following topics are specifically encouraged:

• stochastic modelling of parametric and model uncertainties, in particular in high dimension;
• stochastic analysis for complex structures;
• computational homogenization of heterogeneous materials;
• concurrent/sequential coupling of stochastic atomistic/continuum or multiphysics models;
• simulation algorithms for stochastic processes and random fields;
• methodologies and algorithms for solving statistical inverse problems;
• validation methods for uncertainty quantification.

Many technological materials (e.g., paper, fiber matrix composites, ceramics) and geological media (e.g., soil, rock) involve considerable local variability in their physical properties. Real-life networks (e.g., electric grids, computer networks) also involve complex structure and connectivity properties. In such systems stochastic models are often used in order to capture the inherent uncertainty and variability. In the stochastic framework, the strength of these systems to various external stress factors is determined by means of appropriate probability distributions that incorporate the impact of randomness and heterogeneity. The aforementioned probability distributions are based on phenomenological proposals or the solution of suitable stochastic differential equations. This session will focus on stochastic models of failure with applications in materials and networks. Some non-restrictive applications involve the fracture of fiber matrix composites, the statistics of earthquakes, failure of distribution networks, and the mechanical strength of fiber networks.

Key words: Uncertainty Quantification, Stochastic Mechanics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Fluid Structure Interaction

Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) is increasingly being acknowledged as an indispensable component of state-of-the-art scientific computing for enhancing the predictive capabilities of simulation tools. This essentially requires the development of stochastic analysis as well as statistical modelling tools in the broad area of computational mechanics. The introduction of these UQ methods in the areas of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) can bring in several challenges; the main challenges are, high computational costs associated with high fidelity solvers, modelling errors, presence of inherent flow fluctuations & noise, strong nonlinearities, large number of parametric uncertainties and the verification and validation of results. These issues need careful consideration before a successful implementation of UQ in engineering design.

This minisymposium on UQ in CFD and FSI is a continuation of the successful session on a similar topic on CFD alone at the previous ECFD conference in Barcelona in 2014. Previous speakers are invited to present their on-going progress and new contributions from the expanding community and FSI are also solicited. The minisymposium will form a podium for discussing new ideas in this emerging field with emphasis on, but not limited to the following:

• Stochastic reduced order models;
• Novel concepts to overcome issues with non-smooth response surfaces;
• Robust algorithms for high-dimensional uncertainty propagation;
• Novel concepts for estimating model uncertainty;
• Decision-making frameworks for minimizing uncertainty in robust optimization;
• Applications to verification and validation processes.

Prospective speakers are encouraged to submit a one-page abstract through the congress website at their earliest convenience and before the closing date. A keynote lecture will be selected from the submitted abstracts.

Uncertainty quantification has become a key challenge in modern engineering, whether it is used for assessing the safety of systems (structural reliability methods), for finding the distributions and moments of quantities of interest, for determining the key parameters of the problem (sensitivity analysis), or for optimizing under safety constraints (reliability-based design optimization (RBDO)). Various techniques for solving these problems have received much attention in the mechanical, civil, and aerospace engineering communities over the past two decades.
However, accurate computational models (e.g., finite element analysis) of complex structures or systems are often costly. A single run of the model may last minutes to hours, even on powerful computers. In order to use these models in analyses that require repeated calls to the computer code, it is necessary to develop a substitute that may be evaluated thousands to millions of times at low cost: these substitutes are referred to as meta-models or surrogate models.
The “curse of dimensionality”, i.e. the exploding complexity observed when the number of input variables increases, is a recurrent problem in surrogate modelling. The aim of this mini-symposium is to confront various kinds of meta-modeling techniques in the context of uncertainty propagation, including polynomial chaos expansions, Kriging, support vector regression, etc. and to discuss the recent advances towards solving high dimensional problems.

Nonlinear dynamical systems manifest in mechanical, aerospace, civil, earthquake and bio engineering as well as in related engineering disciplines. Nonlinearities arise from several sources, including material constitutive laws, motion constraints or large rigid body rotations of the system components. Uncertainties arise from the assumptions and compromises entering the development of mathematical models of dynamical systems as well as the hypotheses on the simulation of applied loads. The propagation of these uncertainties adversely affects simulation accuracy and, consequently, the design, operation and maintenance decisions for meeting desirable system performance and safety requirements. Experimental data from component tests or system monitoring is often used to select the most appropriate models of system components and to calibrate the involved parameters.

This MS deals with modeling, uncertainty quantification and inverse methods applicable to the simulation of nonlinear dynamical systems. It covers theoretical and computational issues related to modeling of dynamical systems with complexities arising from various sources, including nonlinearities and large number of degrees of freedom. Topics relevant to the MS include: Dynamics and vibrations of nonlinear structural systems, dynamics of mechanical systems subject to bilateral or unilateral motion constraints, dynamics and vibration of mechanisms involving members exhibiting large rigid body rotation. Probabilistic (e.g., Bayesian) and non-probabilistic methods with related computational tools for UQ and inverse analysis; surrogate models for reducing the substantial computational effort due to the large number of repeated model runs required, uncertainty propagation methods for data-informed predictions of performance, reliability and safety of dynamical systems. Papers dealing with experimental investigation and verification of theories are especially welcome.

Design optimization, uncertainty quantification, and inverse problems, all pose the need to numerically solve the governing equations of a dynamical system (i.e., the forward problem) multiple times, often hundreds of times. The complexity in repeatedly solving forward problems is further amplified in the presence of nonlinearity, high-dimensional input spaces, and massive data-sets; all common features in realistic physical, engineering, and biological systems. The goal of this Mini-Symposium is to establish a vibrant interface between traditional scientific computing methodologies and contemporary machine learning techniques, towards developing scalable workflows for constructing response surfaces of high-dimensional stochastic dynamical systems. Topics relevant to the Mini-Symposium include, but are not limited to: multi-fidelity information fusion, unsupervised learning from large data-sets, surrogate-based modeling, and relevant applications to design, inverse, and UQ problems.

Over the past few years, an extensive research has been carried out on the role of randomness arising in many engineering problems, which indicated the dire need for the development of methods capable of quantifying uncertainty and predict uncertainty propagation in space and time. Towards this direction, various techniques have been proposed which can be non-intrusive simulation based methods, intrusive spectral Galerkin-based methods as well as path integral and probability density evolution methods which aim at solving directly the Fokker-Planck stochastic differential equations that govern the problem. Advances are being constantly made in this field and new computational methods and areas of application emerge.

This mini-symposium aims at bringing together researchers from the field of computational stochastic mechanics and uncertainty quantification to exchange and discuss the latest achievements in the methods used for solving stochastic differential equations and potential applications. In this respect, topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Path integral methods
• Probability Density Evolution methods
• Spectral Stochastic Galerkin methods
• Advanced Monte Carlo simulation techniques
• Stochastic adaptivity methods
• Reduced order stochastic models
• Applications in bioengineering, multiscale analysis and design, earthquake engineering and structural dynamics.

Key words: adaptive methods, sensitivity analysis, error estimation, response surface approximation, stochastic inversion, dimension reduction

A tremendous amount of research over the past 40 years has been dedicated towards developing adaptive methods for computational models to concentrate computational resources where they are needed in order to reduce the cost in obtaining reliable predictions. Meanwhile, the computational science community has recognized that uncertainty is ubiquitous in predictive modeling and simulation due to unknown model parameters, boundary conditions, etc. Consequently, there has been considerable interest in recent years to develop efficient and accurate adaptive methods for both the forward and inverse propagation of uncertainty.

In many cases, the goal is to provide accurate estimates of certain probabilistic predictions (e.g., mean, variance, probability of failure, etc.) for a handful of quantities of interest by adaptively controlling both the deterministic and stochastic sources of error.

The goal of this mini-symposium is to provide an opportunity for researchers to present recent work and exchange ideas on adaptive methods for forward and inverse propagation of uncertainty.
We anticipate contributions on the following topics:

• Adaptive sampling methods including novel approaches for Bayesian inference
• A posteriori and a priori error estimates that separately estimate deterministic and
stochastic sources of error
• Combined spatial-temporal-stochastic adaptive techniques
• Adaptive response surface approximations for forward and/or inverse UQ
• Dimension reduction to concentrate computational resources on a reduced subspace

The MS will collect works devoted to the study of structures in which some geometrical and/or mechanical properties and/or load conditions are uncertain and, hence, cannot be defined deterministically. The importance of this kind of study is above all related to the study of some structural problems, as the structural reliability, for which neglecting the effective uncertain nature of some structural parameters is not possible.

If the originally uncertainties are characterized stochastically, then the probabilistic and/or statistic approaches can be used for the definition of the uncertainty propagation, that is for the probabilistic characterization of the structural response. In alternative, other non-probabilistic approaches, such as the interval analysis one, can be used.

Objectives: Innovative computational methods remain still of utmost interest to scientists or technologists for solving complex problems in different sectors of Aeronautics.

E-CAero2 is an EC project intending to harmonize dissemination in the fields of Aeronautics through an Open European platform. Six major Aeronautical Associations (CEAS, ECCOMAS, ERCOFTAC, EUCASS, EUROMECH and EUROTURBO) are working together to achieve this goal, organizing collaborative events, synchronizing journal publications and IT tools for management and logistics.

In this STS we propose to install on and present from the Platform an Open Database containing Case Studies that will serve as a reference point for the validation of CFD, Structures, Optimization and Control software and facilitate verifying and validating methods and models in the industrial research.

The STS invited lecturers will describe the goal of the Open Database, the process of acquiring, installing with prescribed format and analyzing data resulting from the computation of their case studies.

The definition of each Case Study will include: objectives, requirement (software analyzer, meshers and optimizers), computational domain, physical and mathematical modeling, boundary and/or initial conditions for computation, design parameters (if any), objection function (if any) and computational data results.

Discipline of Case Studies to be considered are: CFD, Structures, Turbulence, Propulsion, Turbomachinery and Design.

The implementation of Intelligent Transport Systems (IST) will respond in a near future to multiple users’ needs and enable improved greener travel performances. Development of integrated Computational and IT new concepts advanced travel services and ensuring Data Protection are new challenges offering travellers easy, flexible, reliable and environmentally sustainable every day travel , including public transport, car-sharing , road use , goods shipping and delivery  logistics.

The objectives of this STS is to present academic and industrial lectures focused in the transverse fields of Aeronautics, Automotive, Logistics, Maritime and Railways as a preliminary answer to the above smart mobility challenges with integrated innovative computational methods and IT tools.

The new H2020 program in Aeronautics  targets  Green Technologies  in the short term    with a 75 % reduction in CO2 emissions , a 90% reduction in NOx emissions  and a perceived noise emission of flying aircraft reduced by 65%.

In order to reach these targets, optimized conventional aircraft and engines must use best fuel efficiency and noise and drag control technologies.

The content of this STS aims to present single and multi disciplinary/multi physics design optimization methods and tools and multi flight optimization by academic and industry lecturers  to be used in aircraft and aero engine  environments  in order to reach this green level of excellence.

There is an increasing tendency towards maintaining flow’s laminarity even in highly loaded cases with shock waves. Laminarity is often maintained on long distances:

up to the shock wave location on wings,
causing fan blockage in the tip sections of compressors due to the laminar separation,
at highly turning high pressure turbine blades laminar boundary layer is also maintained up to a shock wave.

The general aim of the EU-project TFAST is to find ways to avoid that the laminar boundary layer is penetrated by the shock wave. It is not the project objective to improve knowledge of laminar boundary layers or on transition.

Important topic in the TFAST project is to understand how transition can be induced by control devices, used until now only in turbulent boundary layers.

The innovative goals may be summarized as:

a.    Find out natural transition location in compressible flows with shock wave by means of experiment and a number of modern techniques basing on LES and DNS and compare it with the traditional transition location approaches in RANS and URANS

b.    Numerical simulations and experimental investigations of the unsteady interaction at different locations of the transition in relation to the shock wave.

c.    Investigation of the flow control methods operation in laminar boundary layer to understand the physics involved and to relate this to the induction of laminar-turbulent transition.

The TFAST project is just being finalised and this special technology session provides an overview of the obtained results.

Europe's Vision for Aviation 'Flightpath 2050' sets a reduction of specific fuel consumption for 2050 by 75% compared to the standard of civil aviation in 2000. For achieving this ambitious goal, which was even emphasised by the new universal climate change agreement of the UN climate conference in Paris in December 2015, all available contributing technologies need to be investigated.

Among the promising aerodynamic drag reduction technologies to minimize fuel consumption of commercial aircraft, hybrid laminar flow control (HLFC) offers a significant if not the largest net saving potential, especially if applied to wings, tails, and nacelles. HLFC combines natural laminar flow (NLF) via airfoil shaping with active flow control via boundary layer suction. It needs to be integrated in the design of future aircraft. This STS will provide an overview on the status of the related technological developments and will address in particular:   

-           The transition prediction for 3D-flows,                                 

-           The need for technology validation of the laminar flow predictions methods,

-           The progress in laminar flow research within the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking, 

-           Future lifting concepts and morphing wing solutions,                      

-           The wing design methodology for hybrid laminar flow control.

The experimental research activities as well as numerical design methods performed by industry and research institutions will be presented.

Morphing technologies allow an aircraft to change the geometry of its aerodynamic surfaces smoothly contoured without any additional steps or gaps. For large civil transport aircraft a significant progress regarding morphing technologies can be observed, especially due to the European research project SARISTU (Smart Intelligent Aircraft Structures). Within this project a partial, full size outer wing section for a typical business jet of ALENIA was sized to all major design criteria such as static strength, fatigue and aeroelasticity and tested within a low speed wind tunnel for performance verification for the leading edge, trailing edge and winglet morphing application. Typical industrialisation aspects like bird strike, lightning strike, anti/de-icing and many others were investigated in deep detail. Altogether the achievements within SARSITU can be considered as big step forward with respect to bringing morphing technologies to real flight applications. Within this STS major players (DLR, Airbus Group Innovation, CIRA) responsible for the development of morphing technologies within SARISTU present their unique results.

In this session, we want to high-light recent research on high-lift system aerodynamics for civil aircraft, focusing on methods and application of CFD for the evaluation and design of the aerodynamics of high-lift system components. The session includes contributions from various European and national projects dealing with high-lift system aerodynamics. Especially highlighted are contributions to research projects dealing with active flow separation and circulation control.

The following technical areas will be addressed:

CFD-based optimization activities for high-lift system design carried out within the DESIREH project,
Application of synthetic jets actuators in wing-pylon junction area to improve the high-lift performances,
Design and verification of active flow separation control at the wing/engine junction,
Nacelle strake design for a short take-off and landing configuration with turboprop aircraft (remark: submitted and accepted with ID E7454),
A summary of 10 years of European research with the DLR-F15 high-lift airfoil.

The International Workshop on High Order CFD Methods is organized alternately in the US and Europe at approximatively 18 month intervals. Previous editions were held at the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in 2012 [1, 4], in Cologne in 2013 [2] and recently at the AIAA SciTech 2015 conference
[3], and have attracted researchers from all over the world. The last edition involved over 22 organisations, including universities, research institutes and industry. The objectives of the workshop are:

- to provide an open and impartial forum for evaluating the status of high-order methods in solving a wide range of flow problems;
- to assess the performance of high-order methods through comparison to production 2nd order accurate CFD codes widely used in the aerospace industry with well defined metrics;
- to identify pacing items in high-order methods needing additional research and development in order to proliferate in the CFD community.

To this end bench mark test cases are computed, ranging from convergence studies on simple problems to complex industrially relevant flows. The test cases include inviscid, laminar and turbulent regimes solved using either Euler, RANS, LES or even DNS approaches. The contributions are compared on the basis of grid convergence as well as the relation between solution accuracy and computational cost. The fourth edition will be organised during the weekend preceeding the ECCOMAS CFD conference.

During the minisymposium, the organizers will discuss the benchmark cases and summarize the results, and a podium will be given to individual participants of the workshop. Distinguished speakers from industry and academia will be invited to provide their opinion on the status, pacing items and industrial
requirements for high order CFD methods.

The aim of this mini-symposium is to compare different advanced strategies for the determination of the global optimized (GO) shape of the flying configurations of minimum drag in supersonic flow. The wished topics are:

- the determination of the GO shape of the wing-fuselage configuration;

- the multipoint global optimal design, by morphing;

- the multidisciplinary optimization  by considering  the influence of the weak or strong interaction aerodynamics-structure;

- the reduction of the sonic boom and, especially, of the sonic boom interference and

- the use of solar cells for a hybrid flight.

All the contributions on these topics can be useful for the design of economical and ecological avoidable supersonic aircraft, space vehicles and UAVS.       

The efficient management of thermal energy on board modern commercial aircraft has emerged as a priority for aircraft manufacturers and their supply chains in order to propose competitive solutions to new market demands whilst continuing to reduce development costs. This new priority, which requires the “thermal behaviour” to be managed from both a top overall aircraft level view point and in detail down to a sub-component level, has become more complex due to the following inter-related challenges:

➊ Modern aircraft use significantly more electrical systems in preference to hydraulic and pneumatic systems.

➋ Increased use of composite materials in aircraft structures leading to new complex constraints for the design.

➌ New requirements to improve passenger thermal comfort and to provide in-flight entertainment and power supply for passengers’ mobile devices.

➍ Environmental European targets (reduction of fuel consumption, of CO2 and NOx emissions, of noise, etc.) becoming more challenging.

The key to addressing these thermal challenges lies in the ability to model and simulate the thermal behaviour of the whole aircraft including systems, equipment and components to the required level of detail and quality. The thermal simulation process must be made more robust and thermal related data from across the extended enterprise must be gathered seamlessly.

The TOICA R&D project launched in September 2013 is radically improving the way thermal studies are performed within aircraft design processes. It enables architects to manage the thermal impact on the overall aircraft architecture by delivering an optimised thermal behaviour of the entire aircraft’s systems, equipment and components.

The resulting overall thermal aircraft architecture is developed and exploited in a Behavioural Digital Aircraft (BDA) environment that is tailored to support the activities of the thermal architects and experts.

Thanks to TOICA, we have:

■ Developed the means to improve and optimise the whole aircraft thermal behaviour and deduce the relevant changes to bring about the overall architecture of the systems.

■ Transformed the current thermal analysis to a complete transverse and collaborative thermal process impacting the overall aircraft design thanks to early collaborations of system and equipment providers.

■ Improved the collaborations between all the actors for a deeper integration of the thermal constraints in the architecture and preliminary design phases.

■ Extended the Behavioural Digital Aircraft environment with new capabilities (the architect cockpit) able to support architect decisions during trade-offs held at aircraft and component levels and to increase confidence.

The MiniSymposium will show how thermal trade-off studies of key elements of an aircraft can be performed using TOICA key improvements. It will start with an introduction to the project and the business context, followed by example of concrete results from the project and a synthesis of project’s Breakthroughs and Benefits.