This is topic 12-21 Advanced Computational Methods for Fracture in the upcoming ASME Congress 2009 (November 13-19, Lake Buena Vista, FL., USA.) Deadline for abstract submissio: March 2, 2009.

The aim of the topic is to recognize the recent development in the computational tools for fracture characterization. The topic is open to all contributions on numerical techniques, simulations of fracture problems at all length scales, failure mechanism modeling, fracture prediction, and computational algorithms to achieve these goals.

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

• Numerical techniques for simulating quasi-static and dynamic fracture
• Multi-scale simulations of mechanical systems
• Constitutive characterization of brittle and ductile fracture
• Mesh-free methods with application to fracture simulation
• Stability of materials and fracture
• Physical based fracture modeling from nano to macro length scales
• Fracture in impact, penetration and fragmentation problems
• Computer aid designs under extreme loadings

Organizers, Ted Belytschko (Northwestern Univ.) J.H. Song (Northwestern Univ) Liang Xue (Northwestern Univ.) Xiaosheng Gao (Univ. Arkron)