Dear colleagues,

Apologies for cross postings.

The second ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on the eXtended Finite Element
Method (XFEM) will take place in Cardiff (Cardiff University) in the
period 29 June - 1 July 2011. [see http://www.xfem2011.com for
details]

We would like to invite you and your students to submit original
research contributions in the area of partition of unity enrichment.
In particular, we welcome contributions to the following topics:

-         Mathematical foundations, a priori error estimates, modified
XFEMs, cut-off

I joined imechanica almost a year ago and I've been frequently following its interesting discussions, even the most animated ones. I think that a place like this is ideal to foster the exchange of ideas in the scientific community;

Moreover it is fantastic as a simple student like me can interact and easily ask questions to the most important researcher in the field of mechanics.

Hence, I thought it would have been the right place to pose a question which I believe is quite controversial. The debate I would like to open is about the future of meshless methods, are they still valid? It is worth to keep investigation in this area?

In the attached paper (accepted for publication), we present enriched FE formulations to impose Bloch-periodic boundary conditions. Bloch-periodic BCs arise in the description of wave-like phenomena in periodic media: periodic composites, Schrodinger equation in quantum mechanics, photonic band-gap materials, etc. For a perspective, see the J-Club on elastodynamic bandgaps and metamaterials that was organized by Biswajit Banerjee