I have funding for software development to provide a UMAT interface in the parallel versions of the code from Smith I.M. and Griffiths D.V. "Programming the Finite Element Method", 4th Edition, Wiley, 2004.

I would be interested to hear about any open source UMATs available for download. I'd also like to hear from anyone who might like to use their closed source UMATs in a parallel environment.

The funding has been awarded by the UK National HPC Service HECToR to encourage the greater use of HECToR for Structural Engineering.

The project runs from 1 December 2010 to 30 November 2011. Further details can be found at  http://tinyurl.com/23favxu

NAFEMS will be holding a special workshop titled "High Performance Computing for Engineering Simulation". This workshop is part of the biennial NAFEMS World Congress (http://www.nafems.org/congress) being held in Boston USA from 23-26 May 2011. The aim of the workshop is to promote discussion about the changing HPC landscape. Participants will include the users of engineering simulation software, those that develop it and those who provide the underlying hardware infrastructure.

At the suggestion of Joy Sircar, the Chief Technology Officer at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, of Harvard University, iMechanica has just added a forum called Technology Corner. As Joy has framed it, this new forum intends to host conversations on software and hardware technologies that might be relevant to mechanicians.

Here is a question I have. Lately I've heard the phrase Grid Computing a number of times. It is about networking lots of computers and other electronic devices, and supply users with computing power like supplying electricity. That is, computing power will become a utility. One might even hope software will also become utilities. Some people say that Grid Computing will happen in just a few years, or may be already here. Here is a collection of essays in Nature on 2020 Future of Computing.