1. Definition of nanocomposites Nanocomposites are a novel class of composite materials whose reinforcements have dimensions in the range of 1-100 nm. Although nanoscale reinforcements (or nanofillers) of nanocomposites have different kinds of fillers such as nanofibers, nanowires, nanotubes and nanoparticles etc, their mechanical behaviors have some common features. Figure 1 shows a potential use of nanocomposites as multifunctional materials. Since many important chemical and physical interactions are governed by surfaces and surface properties, and nanoscale reinforcements have a large surface area for a given volume, nanocomposites are ideal multifunctional materials. For nanotube-reinforced materials, coupled mechanical and electric properties of nanotubes can be used for very small-scale health monitoring.

The full program for the 3rd International Conference on Engineering Failure Analysis is available at www.icefa.elsevier.com. Join your peers and take advantage of the 15% "early bird" discount by registering for this popular and well-received single stream meeting before 30 April. The conference takes place July 13-16 in the beautiful coastal town of Sitges, just a few miles from Barcelona's international airport. 

Respected sirs/madams

I am working on failure analysis of concrete. I am trying to simulate in ANSYS, I heard about element birth/death option for changing the status of element during analysis. My doubt is whether I can use this element birth/death option for analysis or this is only used as a postprocessing tool.

 I am trying is to reduce the stiffness of the elements whose maximum principal stress reaches the ultimate strength of concrete and than further apply load in the susequent load step on the finite element model whose elements are removed.

Please help me in understanding element birth/death

The abstract submission deadline for this next conference in the biennial Engineering Failure Analysis series (www.icefa.elsevier.com) is 30 November 2007.

The conference will take place in the coastal town of Sitges, just a short distance from Barcelona's international airport, from 13 to 16 July 2008.