Accepted Minisymposia

Huajian Gao - Brown University
Yonggang Huang - Northwestern University

This symposium is aimed to honor Prof. Zdenek P. Bazant’s scientific accomplishments on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The proposed symposium will bring together leading scientists in the research fields described below to discuss the frontier research issues and directions. The invited speakers will include some of the close friends, colleagues, as well as former and current students and postdocs of Prof. Bazant.
During the last few decades, Prof. Bazant has been leading several important fields of solid and structural mechanics, materials research in concrete and composites, and structural engineering research. He has made important contributions to fundamental theories in fracture, failure and stability of engineering structures, as well as practical applications of these theories in engineering practice. He is the world’s foremost authority and leader on the size effect and scaling in the failure behaviors of quasi-brittle load- bearing structures, especially concrete, sea ice and composites. His work laid the foundation to the understanding of scaling laws that relate material failure behaviors at all scales and sizes. One of his ground breaking contributions was to show that quasi-brittle materials generally exhibit a transition from a Gaussian distribution of failure probability at small specimen sizes to a Weibull type distribution at large size. His theory also allowed the treatment of the “tails” of these distributions using extreme value statistics, which plays a critical role in predicting the structural safety and lifetime of practical engineering structures. In addition to his original research papers, Zdenek has produced a number of books and monographs that have all made great impact to the field. His book on “Scaling of Structural Strength” integrates his original contributions to the size effect and fracture scaling of quasi-brittle materials with many experimental validations, thereby establishing a theoretical basis for relating laboratory scale experiments to practical design of large scale engineering structures. His recent work has included timely engineering topics such as fracking (hydraulic fracturing) of shale, dynamic overstress in fracturing of concrete at high strain rates, size effect and probability distribution of fatigue crack growth and residual strength.

Dinesh Katti - North Dakota State University
Christian Hellmich - Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien)

The symposium is to bring together researchers working on various aspects of mechanics, micro and nanostructure, and synthesis and processing of materials and structures inspired by biology including but not limited to following themes:
1. Modeling and simulation of mechanical properties of biological materials,
2. Materials design, synthesis and processing based on biological materials,
3. Scale transition methods for bio-inspired or biological materials,
4. Nano and micro scale characterization of interfaces in biological and bio- inspired materials,
5. Experimental investigation of bio-inspired or biological materials,
6. Poromechanical problems in bio-inspired or biological materials,
7. Constructs for tissue engineering
8. Biomechanics
This symposium is supported by three EMI committees, 1) Biomechanics, 2) Properties of Materials and 3) Poromechanics.

Chung-Hao Lee - The University of Oklahoma
Ming-Chen Hsu - Iowa State University
Yue Yu - Lehigh University
Dominik Schillinger - University of Minnesota
Ankush Aggarwal - Swansea University

"Computational biomechanics has become an essential component for patient-specific diagnostics and better understanding of physiological and pathological conditions in the human body. Development of predictive and reliable biomechanical models has been greatly facilitated by recent advances in medical imaging modalities and image segmentation techniques. However, there still remain open questions about tackling the immanent complexity of physiological processes and multiscale linking of mechanics across cellular, tissue, and organ levels, which requires interdisciplinary thinking, sophisticated modeling, and advanced numerical methods. Also, the consideration of continuum, solid and fluid mechanics aspects and their interactions across multiple length and temporal scales call for innovative simulation technologies that go beyond standard numerical analysis paradigms. This mini-symposium therefore aims at bringing together researchers from the computational biomechanics community to discuss latest achievements in the development of innovative and advanced numerical methods applied to biological tissues and improved treatments for human body diseases. This includes the areas of cardiac & vascular systems, musculoskeletal soft tissues, orthopedic biomechanics, sports & blast-induced injury, and ocular & optofluidics, among others.
Topics of interest for this minisymposium include, but are not limited to the following:
• Novel numerical methods & concepts for biomechanics problems and their algorithmic implementations in predictive biomechanical simulations
• Advanced fluid-structure interaction modeling algorithms and techniques for organ-level hemodynamic simulations in biomedical applications
• High-order, isogeometric, and coupled methods for multiphysics and multiscale biomechanical modeling
• Inverse methods for characterization of functional biomechanical properties of biological tissues under their physiological, diseased, and surgically treated conditions
• Reduced-order modeling for fast personalized surgery simulations and pre-operative treatment planning
• Verification, validation and uncertainty quantification in patient-specific simulations based on novel diagnostic medical imaging technologies
• Growth, remodeling and repair in biological tissues
• Molecular and cellular biomechanics informed tissue constitutive models, including multiscale mechanics of protein assemblies, lipid membrane, and cytoskeleton"

Nima Rahbar - Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Qiming Wang - University of Southern California
Wanliang Shan - University of Nevada, Reno

"Biological systems exhibit features ranging from nano to macroscale in a hierarchical fashion, which calls for multi-scale modeling and experimental techniques that need to overcome long-standing challenges in accurately capturing the physical, chemical and structural complexities transcending length and time-scales. From another aspect, it is also a long-standing challenge to design engineering materials and structures inspired from biological systems. Recent years have witnessed a wave of renewed interest in designing bioinspired materials and structures especially accompanied with the rapid development of modern fabrication technology, such as nanofabrication and 3D printing. For example, a number of novel top-down or bottom-up fabrication approaches have been developed to tailor materials into bioinspired structures that enable unprecedented properties such as ultra-lightweight, ultra-tough, ultra-strong and ultra-stretchable. This symposium attempts to provide a forum that brings together mechanicians, experimentalists and materials researchers who investigate the mechanical behavior of biological materials with the aim to understand the novel mechanics of biosystems and stipulate designs toward effective biomimicry and bioinspiration. Topics will cover various aspects of mechanics, micro and nanostructures, synthesis and processing of materials and structures inspired by biology including but not limited to following themes:
1. Materials design, synthesis and processing of inspired biological materials,
2. Self-assembly and 3D printing of bioinspired materials and structures.
3. Nano and micro scale characterization of biological and bioinspired materials and structures,
5. Modeling and simulation of mechanical properties of biological materials and structures,
6. Structure-function relationships in bioinspired materials and structures"

Ali Ghahremaninezhad - University of Miami
Nima Rahbar - Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Qiming Wang - University of Southern California

"There is a rapidly growing interest in soft materials due to their interesting properties enabling development of innovative multifunctional materials and structures in a wide array of applications. Large deformation arising from multiphysical processes has presented interesting research challenges in soft materials. Additionally, a key component of biological materials can be represented by soft materials. Abstracts are sought (but not limited to) that address the experimental, theoretical, and computational efforts in one or more of the following:
• Hydrogels and soft wet materials
• Liquid crystal elastomers
• Shape-memory polymers
• physically sensitive polymers
• Deformation instabilities and fracture
• Adhesion
• Soft biological materials and bioinspired materials
• Multiphysics phenomena in soft Materials
• Additive manufacturing of soft materials"

Stefan Scheiner - Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Claire Morin - Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, France

Biological tissues usually exhibit complex, often non-linear, and time-dependent mechanical behaviors. These features can be related to the highly heterogeneous and complex organization of the tissue microstructure, as well as to strong couplings that exist in such tissues between the (poro-) mechanical environment and biological as well as chemical processes, with the latter potentially implying changes of the tissue microstructure over time. A wealth of experimental, theoretical, and numerical methods exists for the mechanobiological characterization of the different classes of (soft and hard) tissues. Considering that several of the underlying processes exhibit significant similarities between the different tissues, the goal of this mini-symposium is the cross-fertilization of the usually separated scientific communities studying these processes and methodologies either on soft or hard tissues. Contributions dealing with theoretical, computational, as well as experimental research on the mechanobiology of soft and hard tissues are welcome, including (but not limited to) the following topics, many of which involving or even originating from classical engineering mechanics approaches: biomechanics; poromechanical problems in biological materials; experimental investigation of biological materials; modeling and simulation of mechanical properties of biological materials; cellular sensing/transduction of mechanical loading; soft and hard tissue remodeling, emphasizing on regulatory mechanisms, and related diseases; tissue mineralization/calcification, and related diseases; and multiscale modeling strategies.

Timothy Truster - University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Caglar Oskay - Vanderbilt University
Guglielmo Scovazzi- Duke University
Ertugrul Taciroglu - University of California – Los Angeles
Haim Waisman - Columbia University

The aim of this minisymposium is to provide a forum for discussing the novel computational methods and applications that pertain to solid and structural mechanics problems. This minisymposium seeks to bring together students, academicians and professionals working on computational solid and structural mechanics.
In particular, contributions on the following topics are of significant interest:
- Novel computational methods for contact, fracture, interface modeling and other important engineering problems.
- Multiscale modeling and methods for heterogeneous materials including composites, concrete, wood, and others.
- Novel discretization techniques for complex constitutive models and complex geometry
- Multiscale modeling and methods for structural mechanics problems.
- Computational methods for time dependent structural and material response (collapse, creep, fatigue, etc.).
- Modeling of multiphysics phenomena (e.g., coupling of mechanics with electromagnetic, chemical, or transport effects).
- Solution techniques, error estimation, algorithmic analysis and convergence studies in computational mechanics

This MS is sponsored by the EMI Computational Mechanics Committee.

Ertugrul Taciroglu - UCLA
Pedro Arduino - University of Washington
Andre Barbosa - Oregon State U.
Joel Conte - UCSD
Chanseok Jeong, Catholic University of America
Payman Khalili-Tehrani - SC Solutions Inc.
Farzin Zareian - UC Irvine

"In this minisymposium, we aim to bring together researchers who develop or utilize advanced computational methods for analysis or design of civil structures (bridges, buildings, dams, tunnels, etc.). Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Performance- or reliability-based methods of design or analysis
• Methods for analysis of coupled problems in civil engineering, such as soil-structure, and fluid-structure interaction problems
• Optimal design of structures
• Development and application of algorithms or tools for massive computational simulations in civil engineering applications
• Advanced methods for numerical simulation of various types of structures (wood, masonry, reinforced-concrete, steel, etc.) under extreme loads (seismic, impact, blast, wind)
• Reduced-order modeling in civil engineering applications (including the development of macro-elements)
• Development and validation of novel constitutive models for civil engineering materials
• Model validation and updating"

Jason Roth-U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center
J. S. Chen-University of California, San Diego
Michael Hillman-The Pennsylvania State University

"Extreme events that occur as the result of manmade and natural disasters (blast, impact and penetration, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides) pose severe threats to our society's well-being. As such, computational and experimental mechanics for predicting and understanding these complex events is of significant importance; research in this area is a timely topic and crucial for the safeguarding of the manmade and natural environment. This session aims to promote collaboration among academia, government, and industry engineers in the development and application of advanced computational and experimental methods for the study of extreme events. Those who have been working in the fields of computational solid mechanics, fluid dynamics and fluid-structure interaction, constitutive model development, material characterization under high-rate or high-pressure loading, and other computational and/or experimental methods as related to the prediction and analysis of disaster effects are cordially invited to exchange their ideas and research results in this session. The minisymposia will solicit all subjects related to computational methods and related experimental V&V for the study of extreme events, which include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Method and algorithm development for the simulation of problems involving harsh dynamic loading, high strain-rate, large material deformation, fracture and failure, or material breakup
• Fluid-structure interaction in disaster dynamics and material/structure failure
• Multiscale approaches to extreme material failure and disaster simulation
• Constitutive modeling and characterization of materials under high strain rate
• Constitutive modeling and characterization of disaster debris fields
• Simulation of multi-phase flow fields resulting from disaster events
• Applications of computational methods to simulation of natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, and landslides
• Applications of computational methods to simulation of manmade disasters like blast and penetration
• Computational investigations on infrastructure resiliency to include predictions of residual strength and prevention of progressive collapse
• Computational and experimental investigations on high-rate damage and failure mechanisms in semi-brittle geomaterials like concrete
• Computational and experimental investigations on soil liquefaction, foundation failure and debris flow
• Verification and validation of disaster simulation models
• Numerical algorithm implementation and simulation software development
• Large scale parallel computation and scalable algorithms"

Artem Korobenko-University of Calgary
Ming-Chen Hsu - Iowa State University
Michael J. Borden - North Carolina State University
Thomas J.R. Hughes - University of Texas at Austin, Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES)

"Since its conception, Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) has been widely used in many areas of computational mechanics, engineering and sciences. By integrating geometric modelling into numerical simulation through a single CAD-based representation of the geometry and solution field approximations based on smooth and higher-order basis functions, like non-uniform rational B-splines or T-splines, IGA has been shown to produce more accurate results as compared to standard finite elements discretization on a degree-of-freedom basis.
The topics of this mini-symposium will cover different aspects of IGA, from geometry modelling, mathematical analysis, adaptivity, novel discretization techniques and coupling with other methods to the new developments in software implementation. It will show the application of IGA technologies to complex engineering problems in structural mechanics, heat and fluid mechanics, coupled fluid-structure interaction and more."

Andres E. Tejada-Martinez-University of South Florida
Yuri Bazilevs-University of California, San Diego

Advances in computing power as well as in turbulence-resolving and subgrid-scale modeling methodologies have enabled the application of large-eddy simulation (LES) and direct numerical simulation (DNS) across a wide range of flows of interest to engineering, life science, environmental and numerous other research communities. This mini-symposium will serve to highlight novel turbulence-resolving methodologies permitting resolution of flows characterized by complex physics and complex geometries and interactions between both, and applications to engineering flows, environmental flows and biological flows among others. These flows are often characterized by multi-scale phenomena generated, for example, by fluid-structure interactions, multi-phase turbulence, turbulence-chemistry interactions, non-Newtonian turbulence and magnetohydrodynamics. Turbulence-resolving methodologies include, for example, the traditional spatial filtering techniques as well as the more recent variational multiscale approaches and their respective subgrid-scale models.

Wei Song-The University of Alabama
Richard Christerson

Real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) is a novel, powerful and cost-effective experimental technique for examining the global behavior of complex, large-scale structural systems under realistic dynamic loading conditions. This technique is developed by coupling both physical and simulated components, and applying advanced algorithms to interface these two components to provide real-time loading rate as the experiment progresses. Recent advances in RTHS are offering better understanding to the fundamental issues in RTHS, and enabling more efficient and cost-effective solutions to the investigation of global structural system behavior under realistic conditions. The goal of this mini symposium is to provide a forum for RTHS researchers to exchange information, disseminate recent findings, and identify future key focus areas in RTHS. This symposium invites papers related to the following aspects of RTHS: numerical integration, actuator control, noise treatment, assessment criteria, stability analysis, innovative hybrid simulation framework, recent RTHS implementations and applications.

Dinesh Katti - North Dakota State University
Sinan Keten - Northwestern University
Nima Rahbar - Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Rouzbeh Shahsavari - Rice University
Kalpana Katti - North Dakota State University
Steve Cranford - Northeastern University

"The symposium will seek papers on topics pertaining to fundamental and applied research in the field of molecular scale modeling and experimentation and their applications to engineering mechanics and materials characterization. Of particular interest are models and/or experimental techniques that enable atomistic control or assessment of mechanistic behavior, or are based on novel mechanistic response. Some of the topics included in the symposium but not limited to are:
1. Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to evaluate the mechanical behavior of materials,
2. Molecular simulations of transport phenomena including diffusion, electrical and thermal transport and coupled behavior,
3. Ab-initio and DFT computations for potential field development,
4. Techniques to bridge molecular scale responses to higher length and time scales,
5. Hybrid modeling approaches, combining atomistic representations with non-atomistic elements
6. Spectroscopy techniques to evaluate molecular scale interactions and conformations,
7. Single molecule force spectroscopy, incl. Atomic force microscopy, lateral force spectroscopy, etc."

Mazdak Tootkaboni - University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Alireza Asadpoure - University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Mehdi Jalalpour - Cleveland State University

This special session of the EMI 2017 Conference will bring together researchers to discuss the latest advancements in topology optimization. Contributions discussing algorithmic developments in topology optimization, as well as novel applications in solid and structural mechanics, fluid flow, heat transfer, electro-magnetics and multi-physics problems are invited. Contributions focusing on topology optimization under uncertainty and its associated theoretical and computational challenges, and those pertaining to the design of material microarchitectures, devices and mechanisms are of particular interest. Contributions in the area of topology optimization for additive manufacturing are especially welcome. This MS is sponsored by the EMI Computational Mechanics and Probabilistic Mechanics Committees.

Bernhard Pichler - TU Wien - Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Franz-Josef Ulm -Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA
Gilles Pijaudier-Cabot -Université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour, France
Günther Meschke Ruhr - University Bochum, Germany
Christian Hellmich - TU Wien - Vienna University of Technology, Austria

The objective of this symposium is to discuss recent advances in experimental oriented research and in modeling of cementitious materials across the scales, ranging from atomistic via molecular, nano, micro, and meso up to the macro scale, including also related applications in the field of engineering mechanics. Analytical and computational models for cementitious materials as well as related experimental techniques, addressing various length and time scales and physical phenomena relevant for the behavior of cementitious materials subjected to different environmental and loading conditions are welcome. Innovative approaches suitable to increase insight into complex phenomena as well as predictive models increasing safety, durability, and sustainability in practical applications are especially encouraged.

Roman Wendner - Univ. BOKU Vienna, AT
Mohammed Alnaggar - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY, USA
Giovanni Di Luzio - Politecnico di Milano, IT
Gianluca Cusatis

In recent years topics such as robustness, resilience, sustainability, life-cycle assessment have shifted into the focus of engineering societies. Many concepts have been developed. Yet, accurate and physically based prediction models and modeling concepts for the time dependent behavior and deterioration of concrete, which are quintessential inputs, are still scarce. This Mini‑Symposium will provide a forum for international experts and researchers to discuss recent developments in modeling time-dependent phenomena relevant to concrete structures. In particular, authors working on research related to creep and shrinkage, alkali-silica reaction, delayed ettringite formation, carbonization, freeze and thaw, corrosion, sulphate attack, and the age-dependent change of mechanical properties are encouraged to submit abstracts. Further topics of interest include coupled problems such as cracking damage and permeability, as well as transport processes in ageing and deteriorating concrete structures.

PELLENQ - MIT/CNRS
IOANNIDOU - MIT/CNRS
DIVOUX - MIT/CNRS

"Concrete, a prominent example of a hard disordered material, is widely produced more than any other synthetic material on Earth. There is no other material that can replace concrete to meet our societies’ needs for housing and infrastructure by the unique property of cement transforming from liquid to stone. Nevertheless concrete faces an uncertain future, due to a non-negligible ecological footprint that amounts to 5-10% of the worldwide CO2 production. However, concrete has the potential to contribute to a sustainable development encompassing economic growth and social progress upon minimizing its ecological footprint. The recent Fukushima and Macondo disasters highlight the lack of materials technology and the need of renewing engineering practices from science-based principles.
Today the advancement of fundamental knowledge on materials is all about developing a predictive bottom-up approach from the atomic level to micro-texture and macroscopic engineering properties. The first outcome of such an approach for cement was a realistic atomistic model of cement hydrates. Its recent upscaling to a realistic microstructure opens unprecedented possibilities and constitutes the starting point for modeling fracture, creep and aging of cement in the context of durability that is the core of the present symposium. This shift of paradigm based on a bottom-up approach can be applied to and tested for other important multiscale materials: soils and sediments, ceramics, solid nuclear fuels, geo-materials.
Soft solids, like hydrogels and elastomers share common features with stiffer and more rigid materials like cement or asphalt, including delayed failure under constant external stress, crack propagation or work-hardening. Indeed, the response of such soft materials is often well captured by empirical laws observed in a wide range of hard solid (e.g Andrade power-law creep response, Basquin's law of fatigue, the Monkman-Grant relationship and Bailey's durability criterion). Hydrogels serve as a model system to explore mechanisms of deformation and energy dissipation associated with the brittle failure scenario of such soft solids.
This mini-symposium focuses on modeling and experiments of failure mechanisms (e.g. fracture and creep) of hard and soft materials with emphasis on the linking of different length scales, the multiscale description of the fracture pattern and that of the crack propagation. Quantitative comparison of the rupture of hard and soft solids should trigger enlightening exchanges. Moreover, the symposium will bring forward the link between the macroscopic failure scenario and the microstructure of solids by focusing on promising strategies of material design."

JOSE L. CURIEL - SOSA University of Sheffield, UK
TINH Q. BUI - Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
ROMESH C. BATRA - Virginia Tech, USA
SOHICHI HIROSE - Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

"Advances in numerical techniques and approaches for modelling mechanics of composites have enabled one to more accurately predict their failure mechanisms both at the constituent and global level. This minisymposium aims to agglutinate research efforts on numerically modelling the mechanical behaviour and ultimate failure of composite structures with methods like the FEM, XFEM, IGA, XIGA, PNM, and phase field models. Examples of topics of interest include the following:
Damage mechanics
- Fracture of laminates and composite structures
- Impact damage/fracture at different strain rates
- High-cycle fatigue delamination in composites
- Homogenisation multiscale techniques for woven/textile composites
- Nanocomposites modelling
This minisymposium should be of interest to researchers working on the mechanics and failure of composite materials or structures."

Christian G. Hoover - Assistant Professor, Arizona State University
Ali Ghahremaninezad - Assistant Professor, University of Miami
Ange-Therese Akono - Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Christian Linder - Assistant Professor, Stanford
Haim Waisman - Associate Professor, Columbia

"The goal of this symposium is to discuss recent advances in the field of fracture mechanics including experiments, analytical models and numerical simulations. We are broadly interested in all aspects of fracture mechanics, e.g. linear elastic fracture mechanics, elastic-plastic fracture mechanics, dynamic, rate-dependent and time-dependent fracture as well as fatigue. In particular, we encourage contributions that seek to:
(i) investigate the deformation and fracture of ductile materials (e.g. deformation instabilities including shear bands and neckings, plastic deformation mechanisms, crystal plasticity, discrete dislocation plasticity, grain boundary effects, defect nucleation, growth, and coalescence, etc.),
(ii) develop novel computational techniques for modeling cracks (e.g. XFEM/GFEM, meshless methods, discrete elements, cohesive elements, peridynamics, phase field, damage models, multiscale fracture models and others),
(iii) develop novel experimental and testing methods for fracture (e.g. fracture energy at micro and nano scale, dynamic fracture and rate-dependent fracture, novel imaging techniques, micro-mechanisms of fracture in advanced composites materials, etc.)
(iv) develop new theoretical models in fracture mechanics (e.g. analytical solutions of fracture problems, constitutive and damage laws, novel analysis techniques, uncertainty quantification and stability analysis of fracture, etc.)."

Jie Li - Tongji University
Xiaodan Ren - Tongji University
Jianying Wu - South China University of Technology

Starting with localized cracking and ending with structural collapse, the progressive failure of engineering structures is usually governed by damage evolution in different levels. To this end, theoretical models and numerical methods for predicting the damage behaviour of structures play increasingly important roles in the design of structures, although their current status lag far behind engineering practices. This symposium aims to promote collaborations among academic researchers and industrial engineers in developing and applying damage models and related numerical methods to the prediction of nonlinear behaviour of engineering structures. Those who have been working on related fields are cordially invited to exchange their ideas and research outcome in this mini-symposium.

Jia-Liang Le -University of Minnesota
Marco Salviato -University of Washington

Many modern engineering structures are composed of brittle heterogenous materials, which are often described as “quasibrittle”. These materials include concrete, composites, tough ceramics, rocks, ice, asphalt binders and mixtures (at low temperatures), and many brittle materials at the micro-scale. Fundamental understanding of fracture and failure of these materials is of paramount importance for improving the resilience and sustainability of various engineering structures including civil infrastructure, aircraft, ships, military armors, biomedical implants, and MEMS devices. This MS is intended to provide a forum for researchers to discuss the recent advances in modeling and characterization of quasibrittle fracture at different length and time scales. Research topics related to micromechanics-based modeling of softening damage, probabilistic modeling, nonlocal and gradient modeling, high strain-rate behavior, cyclic damage, and advanced multiscale and multiphysics computational modeling are welcome. Contributions on novel instrumentation techniques to experimentally characterize quasibrittle fracture process are also strongly encouraged.

Lizhi Sun - UC Irvine
J. Woody Ju - UCLA
George Z. Voyiadjis - LSU
Glaucio H. Paulino - Georgia Tech

"Multiscale materials modeling and characterization has been recognized as one of the fundamental tools to study the local damage and failure behavior of heterogeneous structures at the microscale and overall constitutive relations. This mini-symposium is to provide a forum to discuss recent advances and address the future prospects in the area of multiscale modeling/characterization of damage and failure mechanics. Interested researchers are invited to submit one-page abstracts on topics which include, but are not limited to:
• Microstructural damage/failure characterization of heterogeneous materials;
• Micromechanical damage analysis of materials;
• Multiscale constitutive relations with damage parameters;
• Microstructure – property relations of advanced materials and composites;
• Nanomechanical characterization, analysis and modeling of damage and fracture mechanics;
• Experimental determination of damage and failure at multi-length scales;
• Probabilistic damage/failure mechanics and mechanisms;
• Experimental characterization and validation of damage and failure mechanics.
This mini-symposium is sponsored by EMI Technical Committee on Nanomechanics and Micromechanics."

Sheng-Wei Chi - University of Illinois at Chicago
J. S. Chen - University of California, San Diego
Pai-Chen GUAN - National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan
Dongdong WANG - Xiamen University, China

"Catastrophic events, particularly natural disasters occur worldwide in the form of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, land sliding, flooding, and among others. These disastrous events have devastating impacts on our society. What makes the situation worse is that, due to global climate change, the intensity of these events and the chances of simultaneous occurrence of multiple natural disasters have unprecedentedly increased. The prediction and mitigation of these disastrous events, therefore, has become an immediate need for safeguarding our society. The state-of-the-art numerical methods integrated with knowledge from earth science and engineering offer an effective means to simulate the process of a disaster and predict the impact it may cause. This symposium aims to promote collaboration among researchers and engineers from academia and industry in developing and applying advanced numerical methods for natural disaster prediction and mitigation. Of interest are subjects relevant to numerical disaster simulation, which include but are not limited to the followings:
• Advanced natural disaster simulation methods such as finite element methods, meshfree and particle methods, isogeometric analysis, discrete element methods, etc.
• Constitutive modeling of earth materials and disaster debris
• Coupled solid and fluid mechanics approaches
• Fluid-structure interaction in natural disastrous events
• Multiscale natural disaster simulation
• Numerical algorithm implementation and simulation software development
• Large scale and parallel computation
• Other related subjects"

Tayfun Tezduyar - Rice University
Kenji Takizawa - Waseda University
Yuri Bazilevs - UCSD

The symposium will provide a platform for exchanging ideas and results in computational Biomedical Fluid Mechanics and Fluid–Structure Interaction. This symposium is closely related to two other symposia organized at EMI2017: Fluid–Structure Interaction and Flows With Moving Boundaries and Interfaces. We hope that the participants of this symposium will also attend the two related symposia.

Tayfun Tezduyar - Rice University
Yuri Bazilevs - UCSD
Kenji Takizawa - Waseda Unversity

The symposium will provide a platform for exchanging ideas and results in Flows With Moving Boundaries and Interfaces. This symposium is closely related to two other symposia organized at EMI2017: Fluid–Structure Interaction and Biomedical Fluid Mechanics and Fluid–Structure Interaction. We hope that the participantss of this symposium will also attend the two related symposia.

Tayfun Tezduyar - Rice University
Kenji Takizawa - Waseda Unversity
Yuri Bazilevs - UCSD

The symposium will provide a platform for exchanging ideas and results in computational fluid-structure interaction. This symposium is closely related to two other symposia organized at EMI2017: Biomedical Fluid Mechanics and Fluid–Structure Interaction and Flows With Moving Boundaries and Interfaces. We hope that the participants of this symposium will also attend the two related symposia.

Ning Zhang - McNeese State University

The purpose of the mini symposium is to seek recent research contributions in the areas of fluid-structure interactions (FSI) for incompressible and compressible fluid flows. The mini symposium highlights industrial applications and developments in the targeted areas. Numerical, experimental and theoretical investigations for problems in civil, environmental, mechanical, and other engineering disciplines are welcomed. Authors are invited to submit abstracts and participate in this mini symposium to expand international cooperation, understanding and promotion of efforts in the areas of this mini symposium on Fluid-Structure Interactions.

Waiching Sun - Columbia University
Ronaldo Borja - Stanford University
Richard Regueiro - University of Colorado, Boulder
Jose Andrade - Caltech
Majid Manzari - George Washington University
Qiushi Chen - Clemson University
Xiaoyu Song - University of Florida
Joshua A. White - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

"Geomaterials, such as soil, rock and concrete, are multiphase porous materials whose macroscopic mechanical behavior is governed by grain size distribution and mineralogy, fluid-saturation, pore space, temperature, loading paths and rate, drainage conditions, chemical reactions, and other factors. As a result, predicting the mechanical response of geomaterials often requires knowledge of how several processes, which often take place in different spatial and temporal domains, interact with each other across scales.
This mini-symposium is intended to provide a forum for researchers to present contributions on recent advances in computational geomechanics. Topics within the scope of interests include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) development and validation of constitutive models that address multi-physical coupling effects, (2) discrete and continuum formulations for geomechanics problems, (3) iterative sequential couplings of fluid and solid solvers, (4) uncertainty quantification for geomechanics problems, (5) multiscale mechanics, (6) modeling techniques related to capturing the onset and nucleation of weak and strong discontinuities, (7) contact mechanics of geomaterials, and (8) regularization techniques to circumvent pathological mesh dependence."

Yong-Rak Kim - University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Linbing Wang - Virginia Tech
Hao Wang - Rutgers University
Shane Underwood - Arizona State University

"This mini-symposium aims to achieve a follow-up effort of the National Science Foundation (NSF) International Workshop on the “Genome of Stone-based Civil Infrastructure Materials”, which was held at the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, China in May 2016. The workshop included participation of leading researchers and scholars who has worked on fundamental physics-mechanics-chemistry of various types of stone-based civil infrastructure materials (such as hydrated cement concrete, bituminous materials, unbound aggregates, human-augmented soils, etc.) to develop a roadmap to help answer some of critical questions such as (1) what is the genome in civil infrastructure materials? (2) how can one identify the materials genome and evaluate the influence of the materials genome on material properties? and (3) how will the understanding of the materials genome speed up discovery-innovation in materials design? The two-day workshop resulted in a few action items which are to promote knowledge-technology exchange between participants (and anyone else who would be interested in the theme) and to promote international collaboration for research and education.
We wish this mini-symposium can provide an opportunity to keep the momentum rolling so that the fundamental theories and approaches on civil infrastructure materials from the view of the “materials genome” can be a basis for the next generation design-analysis-retrofit-construction-maintenance methods for civil infrastructures. This would be achievable through the better understanding of relationships between the materials genome, the properties of materials, and the performance of infrastructure systems.
The material genome can be described in terms of the material composition, the microstructure, and the inherent defects and can be determined by material characterization methods at multiple length-time scales through various experimentations, numerical simulations, and integration of those. With the availability of high performance computational methods and tools, multiscale modeling based on actual composition and the microstructure of materials can speed up the material design process with significantly reduced costs and time. Presentations are invited on topics related to multiscale and multiphysics modeling of various civil infrastructure materials.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Multiscale modeling/simulation/experiments of infrastructure materials;
• Coupled mechanics modeling/simulation/experiments of infrastructure materials;
• Chemo-mechanics and atomistic/continuum coupling;
• Inelastic behavior and damage-fracture of infrastructure materials;
• Advanced nanotechnology and nanomaterials for civil infrastructure;
• Microstructural analyses/modeling of infrastructure materials with interface behavior and/or environmental effects;
• Data sharing and database."

Samuel Yniesta - Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
Katerina Ziotopoulou - UC Davis

"Constitutive modeling in Geotechnical Engineering has become an increasingly active research area over the last few years. With numerical methods and platforms and commercial software having reached powerful computational (and storage) capabilities, the spotlight has turned towards the capabilities and limitations introduced to our simulated systems by constitutive models for soils. At the same time, newly emerging materials (e.g. bio-cemented sands) necessitate the development of constitutive models that are capable of capturing the materials’ elemental behavior and thus are able to simulate and predict their response in the field.
The challenge of modeling all aspects of soil’s (mechanical) behavior under various loading conditions and for the broad range of applications and soil types has yielded significantly more theoretical approaches to soil modeling and the implementation of the models. This increase has resulted in a greater number of available constitutive models with varying degrees of complexity and usability. Due to the plethora of available constitutive models for soils, researchers and practitioners need to know: 1) which constitutive models are available and at what capacity (formulation, implementation, compatibility with platforms), and 2) what a given model may or may not be able to do for the range of behaviors applicable to the problem at hand.
This mini-symposium aims to present the latest advances in the development, formulation, validation, and implementation of constitutive models in all disciplines of Geotechnical Engineering. It also intends to provide a forum in which constitutive modelers can identify needs, share ideas, and develop new directions of collaboration on future research projects. Areas of interest include but are not limited to:
− Geoenvironmental engineering
− Earthquake engineering: cyclic loading of soils, liquefaction, and soil-structure interaction
− Soil modeling in 1D, 2D and 3D ground response analyses
− Unsaturated soil mechanics
− Behavior of unconventional soils such as organic soils and municipal solid waste
− Behavior of bio-cemented soils
− Thermal interactions in soils"

Ranganathan Parthasarathy - Tennessee State University
Mahdia Hattab - Universite de Lorraine
Ali Daoudji - Laboratory of Civil and Environmental Engineering (LGCIE - EA 4126), France,

"This mini-symposium focuses on the degradation, damage and healing in particulate systems (granular media, fines such as clays etc.) and including but not limited to chemically active soils, pressure/heat sintered granulates, coated grains, self-healing bio-concrete and clays, glassy/viscoelastic polymers, biomaterials, asphalt mixtures, composites, precipitate-forming metal alloys, granular zeolites et cetera. We welcome all areas of engineering mechanics research including geomechanics, biomedical engineering, concrete design, and all modeling approaches including DEM, micro-mechanics, molecular dynamics, continuum mixture theory, finite element method, or others that explicitly incorporate underlying interaction at granular scale to demonstrate the effect of degradation and healing on the material’s mechanical behavior. We wish to emphasize that the grain size, inter-granular interaction or fluid-grain interaction may encompass any scale of study: molecular, micro-scale or In particular, the following topics are of interest:
a) Development of models which quantify the effect of degradation and healing mechanisms on the bulk or thin film mechanical behavior. Methods such as micromechanics, continuum mixture theory, statistical mechanics, quantum chemistry etc. may all be used to embed micro/molecular scale damage and healing phenomena into constitutive models. Numerical simulation can involve several techniques including FEM, molecular dynamics, ab-initio calculation or combinations of them. Interesting details include:
a. Incorporation of healing/degradation mechanisms at contacts, cross-linking, precipitate formation, effect of grain orientation, viscous flow, diffusion, dissolution, ion-transport slip etc.
b. Constitutive model development including part a.
c. Study of coupling between stress state, temperature and degradation/healing
d. Numerical simulation with/without experimental validation, evolution of yield surface and failure envelopes with damage and healing
b) Experiments on underlying macro, micro or molecular-scale phenomena affecting degradation, damage and healing
a. Laboratory investigation and demonstration of dominant mechanisms of degradation and healing and their coupling with the applied stress state, loading rate, temperature and chemical environment.
b. High-resolution imaging and identification of relevant length scales at which damage and healing occur
c. Experimental observations of transitions in rate-dependent behavior and fluid-structure interaction
Note: A student competition is being planned as part of the mini-symposium"

Matthew R. Kuhn - University of Portland
Shunying Ji Dalian - University of Technology
Anil Misra - University of Kansas
Tang Tat Ng - University of New Mexico
Payam Poorsolhjouy - Purdue University
Junliang Tao - University of Akron
Wei Zhou - Wuhan University

"Nearly every product or commodity in use is constituted and/or derived from granular materials through mining, agriculture, and/or chemical processing. Granular materials are also central to geomechanics and the design of foundations and earthworks. As ubiquitous constituents of industrial processes and geophysical phenomena, these materials exhibit behaviors ranging from rapid, collision-dominated flows to quasi-static deformations. Granular systems also share common properties over a wide range of particle sizes, from rockfills to fine powders, and for colloidal multi-phase materials. On the other hand, their macroscopic properties are entirely dependent on the microstructural and micromechanical properties of their grains and their interactions. As such, suitable attention should also be paid to grain shape and cohesive forces.

This symposium encourages fundamental contributions on:
1) complex behavior at extended scales of density, grain size, and deformation rate
2) complex interactions between grains, fluid, boundary conditions, and temperature
3) transition of granular systems from a solid to fluid-like state
4) fundamental mechanical interactions between particles
5) innovations in discrete element methods with fast contact detection, multi-phases, and parallel computation
6) dynamical systems and multi-scale modeling of flow
7) the interface between granular materials and colloidal systems
modeling granular materials as enhanced continua

The symposium will address granular media from micro- to the macro-scales, including granular modeling, continuum modeling, discrete micro-mechanics, and the micro-macro transition. Contributions on the various aspects of this topic are welcome, including experimental, analytical, computational and theoretical studies. A student competition is being planned as part of the mini-symposium."

Euclides de Mesquita Neto - Univesity of Campinas - Brazil (ASCE EMI Elasticity Committee Member)
John C. Brigham Durham - University (ASCE EMI Elasticity Committee Chair)
Sonia Mogilevskaya - University of Minnesota (ASCE EMI Elasticity Committee Member)
Ney Dumont - Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro Brazil (ASCE EMI Elasticity Committee Member)

The theory of Elasticity has become an important framework and a building block component in many developing fields of rational and applied mechanics. Fundamental concepts of Elasticity are in the base formulations of many presently growing areas of fundamental and applied mechanics. Examples can be found in Biomechanics, in Non-linear Wave Propagation, in Poroelasticiy, in the Modelling of Complex Materials, in the development of Green’s functions for Piezo-elastic and Piezo-electric and magnetic media and also in the foundation of Applied Numerical Methods. The aim of the present Mini Symposium, organized by the ASCE EMI Elasticity Committee is to report recent advances in the areas in which the concepts of the Theory of Elasticity play a major role. Applications in Numerical Methods, Modelling of Materials, Wave propagation phenomena, among others, are within the scope of the Symposium.

Donghyeon Ryu - Department of Mechanical Engineering, New Mexico Tech
Kenneth J. Loh - Department of Structural Engineering, University of California, San Diego

"Multifunctional materials are materials that have been intentionally engineered to exhibit more than one precisely defined property or functionality. These materials are encoded with desirable properties, such as damping, piezoresistivity, piezoelectricity, photoelectricity, magnetostriction, self-healing, and load-bearing, among others, and manufactured using methods like “bottom-up” nano-assembly. In particular, an application area of interest is in structural engineering, where resilience to environmental effects and extreme events require that structural materials exhibit unprecedented strength and toughness yet be able to simultaneously sense, resist, and respond to damage. The design of these innovative high-performance materials also need to be achieved without increasing form factor, weight, and costs. These research challenges have spurred tremendous interest in this area, and recent advances include the development of multifunctional composites, structural coatings, sensors/actuators, and autonomous structural systems. This mini-symposium is soliciting contributions ranging from their development to numerical modeling to laboratory testing and to applications, particularly for enhancing the performance, sustainability, and public safety of structural systems. Examples of specific topics of interest within the realm of multifunctional materials include but are not limited to:
• Applications for structural health monitoring
• Bio-inspired design
• Composites and nanocomposites
• Design and development
• Designing for and applications in extreme environments
• Energy harvesting and storage
• Multi-physics characterization and modeling
• Next-generation structural materials and infrastructure system
• Resilient systems and structures
• Self-healing systems
• Sustainable materials
• Thin films and coatings"

Steven McCabe - National Institute of Standards and Technology
Ting Lin - Marquette University
Kevin Wong - National Institute of Standards and Technology

The objective of this mini-symposium is to bring together researchers and engineers working in areas of advanced analysis, modeling, and simulation of structures to determine their responses for earthquake risk reduction. Topics of advanced analysis for earthquake engineering cover a wide range of special areas and interests, including but not limited to engineering and computational mechanics, ground motion and modeling uncertainties, reliability of response estimations, simulation of collapse, structural control techniques, and engineering utilization of simulated ground motions. Of particular interests are measurement science issues related to analytical techniques, structural dynamics, damping, stability, nonlinear material component modeling, and computational challenges. Solutions to special earthquake engineering problems encountered in research and industry making use of cutting edge engineering mechanics approaches are also very much welcomed.

Asad Esmaeily - Kansas State University
Suren Chen - Colorado State University
Bernhard Pichler - Technical University of Wien

This mini-symposium will be a series of presentations that focus on the state of the art experimental, numerical and analytical studies on the impact of various hazards on the resilience of critical civil infrastructure systems. Papers are solicited on topics covering advanced analytical and experimental methods and approaches to better assess and mitigate hazards and risks to improve infrastructure resilience. These topics include, but are not limited to: new techniques for simulation, testing and system identification methods for load and response assessment of structures including buildings, bridges, transportation systems and other infrastructure/lifeline elements; new testing approaches related to tornadoes, hurricanes, thunderstorms/downbursts, earthquakes and other hazards; experiments and simulations to determine the performance of sustainable buildings and transportation systems; wind energy related experiments and simulations including study of wind load on renewable energy devices and wind turbines.

Aly Mousaad Aly - Louisiana State University

"Wind, wave, and seismic hazards, coupled with aging and vulnerable structures, pose the potential for damage and loss of life and property. Multiple hazard forces can wreak catastrophic damage to buildings, bridges, offshore structures, and the infrastructure in general. Although an individual hazard may be more significant than the other, the rapid population growth and economic development have greatly increased the potential of exposure to multiple hazards. Current design codes and hazard mitigation strategies treat hurricanes and earthquakes completely independent, which does not account for the increased risk to structures in regions where both hazards are present. Consequently, vibration control of structures is indispensable to achieve desired system-level performance under lifetime single and multiple hazard loadings. To do so, several control techniques can be employed. In this mini-symposium, we solicit research presentations focused on the state-of-the-art techniques and methods employed for the control of structures under multiple hazards. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

- Vibration control in buildings for wind and earthquakes;
- Vibration control in bridges for wind and seismic hazards;
- Vibration control in offshore structures for wind and waves;
- Vibration mitigation in flexible structures for improved resilience and performance under synoptic and non-synoptic wind loadings;
- Aerodynamic optimization under synoptic and non-synoptic wind loadings for improved sustainability with resilience benefits


Sponsoring Committee: EMI Structural Health Monitoring & Control Committee"

Richard Kwok Kit Yuen - Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong
Siu Ming Lo - Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong

Many recent incidents revealed the importance of fire effects on building structures. The mechanics of heat and mass transfer and the dynamics of people's motion are major issues for research in engineering mechanics for building fire safety. The mini-symposium serves as a platform for researchers to highlight and share findings and insights in this area. The possible topics include fire dynamics, structural mechanics at elevated temperature, dynamics of people movement, mechanical properties of building materials under fire, and associated research areas.

Nicos Makris - University of Central Florida

The uplifting and rocking of specially design structural components or entire slender, free-standing/weakly-restrained structures when subjected to ground shaking may limit appreciably the seismic moments and shears that develop at their base; therefore, achieving a superior seismic response. In view of the need to minimize seismic stresses, permanent displacements, damage and cost, rocking isolation is receiving increasing attention as an alternative seismic protection strategy. This mini-symposium aims to attract recent contributions on the dynamic response of articulated/rocking structures in an effort to bring forward the major advances together with the unique advantages of rocking isolation.

Dimitrios Konstantinidis - McMaster University
Masaru Kikuchi - Hokkaido University

The mini symposium will focus on recent advances in earthquake protection technologies, with an emphasis on seismic isolation, energy dissipation and vibration control, aimed at protecting both the structural system and nonstructural components.

Gaurav Srivastava - IIT Gandhinagar
Anthony Abu - University of Canterbury

All structural systems carry a risk of being exposed to fire during their service life and hence, provisions for fire safety of buildings (both the structural system and occupants) are important. This mini-symposium will be focused on fire safety aspects of structural systems including (a) firefighting strategies of buildings, (b) egress design, (c) fire dynamics and spread during a building fire, (d) response of structural components during fire, (e) design of structural systems against fire, and (f) fire risk assessment.

Aly Mousaad Aly - Louisiana State University
Elena Dragomirescu - University of Ottawa

The EMI Fluid Dynamics Committee is sponsoring a mini-symposium “Wind Engineering in Natural Hazards” for the EMI 2017 conference that will take place in San Diego, CA, on June 4-7, 2017. In this mini-symposium, we solicit presenting research results focused on recent advances in the area of Wind Engineering in Natural Hazards. Experimental, computational, multi-scale, and multi-physics investigations for problems in wind engineering of structures are welcomed. The topics for presentations may include wind engineering for civil engineering applications, windstorm, wave, and rain impact on the built environment, atmospheric boundary layer processes, boundary layer wind tunnel testing, synoptic and non-synoptic wind processes, testing protocols, and computational wind engineering. The purpose of this meeting is to expand collaboration among scientists, academicians, and practitioners in the area of Wind Engineering.

Masoud K. Darabi - University of Kansas
Silvia Caro - Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Yong-Rak Kim - University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Many civil infrastructures and their materials are subjected to multi-modal loading scenarios incorporated with (harsh) environmental factors. In an era where civil engineering community seeks innovative solutions, it is imperative to more finely describe the response of materials and infrastructures by considering these complex interacting mechanisms. An attractive and promising approach is the thermo-chemo-hygro-mechanical modeling of materials and infrastructures that requires the incorporation of different multi-physics mechanisms with mechanical loading at different scales. The results from these coupled environmental-mechanical modeling techniques provide insights and solutions to practitioners and researchers that were not possible in the past. Presentations are invited on topics related to the current state-of-the-art and/or novel approaches on coupled environmental-mechanical modeling of civil infrastructures and materials. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Coupled thermo-mechanical modeling/simulation/experiments.
- Moisture and fluid diffusion/flow effects on the mechanical response.
- Coupled chemo-mechanical modeling/simulation/experiments.
- Microstructural analyses/modeling of environmental-mechanical responses.
- Inelastic behavior and damage-fracture of infrastructure materials.
- Bond breakage and interface properties incorporated with environmental effects.
- Multi-scale modeling/simulation/experiments.
- Coupled multi-physics and mechanical modeling/simulations.
- Atomistic/continuum coupling.

Chung R. Song-University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Yong-Rak Kim-University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Huiming Yin-Columbia University

"Recently, there has been increasing interests/foci and developments on the multiphysics-multiscale nature of materials research in many different disciplines. It is because many engineering problems have multiple length/time scales and are subjected to multiple physical phenomena (e.g., kinetic, hydraulic, thermal, etc.). Even though multiphysics-multiscale problems have long been studied in Mathematics, the current excitement is driven mainly by the use of the models in the applied science and engineering. Problems are often multiphysics in nature; namely, the processes at different scales are governed by physical laws of different character: for example, quantum mechanics at one scale, classical continuum mechanics at another, and the material behavior at nanoscale or mesoscale often crucially depends on the bridging techniques of different scales. Properly executed multiphysics-multiscale modeling techniques can vastly improve accuracy and efficiency in solutions which were never possible in the past, in many cases, with very reasonable experimental-computational costs.
Given the technological significance and increasing interests, we propose this mini-symposium to discuss/introduce various (physical, mathematical, computational, and experimental) approaches and their integration into the multiphysics-multiscale modeling of materials. Presentations are invited on topics related to multiphysics and/or multiscale modeling of various engineering materials that may also be incorporated with inelastic constitutive behavior. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Coupled mechanics modeling/simulation/experiments of engineering materials;
• Multiscale modeling/simulation/experiments of engineering materials;
• Atomistic/continuum coupling;
• Inelastic behavior and damage-fracture of materials in multiple scales;
• Materials-structures interaction with environmental effects;
• Quasi-continuum and equivalent continuum approaches;
• Advanced nanocomposite-nanomaterials systems and nanomechanics;
• Effects of impurities on mechanical properties of composites."

Pritam Chakraborty - Idaho National Laboratory
Michael Tonks - Pennsylvania State University
Wen Jiang - Idaho National Laboratory
Benjamin Spencer - Idaho National Laboratory

"The microstructure of materials (dislocations, twins, inclusions and second phases, voids, grain boundaries, interfaces, etc.) evolves under their service environment (temperature, stress state, chemical, irradiation, etc.) leading to changes in the mechanical and physical properties. The goal of this symposium is to highlight recent advances in the modeling of microstructure evolution and their subsequent influence on the mechanical and physical properties. In addition, we seek experimental studies that provide guidance and validation for such models.
Specifically, we invite researchers to present their work in the field of microstructure evolution (phase field, Monte Carlo Potts, Molecular Dynamics, etc.), on models/methods that capture the effect of microstructure on the mechanical and physical properties (Discrete Dislocation Dynamics, internal state variable theories, continuum plasticity, gradient plasticity, crystal plasticity, damage mechanics, heat conduction, etc.) and on the coupling of microstructure evolution with variations in thermo-mechanical-physical properties. Multi-time and length scaling approaches that allow quantitative prediction of microstructure and property evolution will also be addressed in the symposium. Presentations that focus on physics, predicted behavior, numerical methods used to investigate the models, and interaction between experiments and models are all of interest.
Topics:
- Microstructure Evolution:
Phase field, Monte Carlo, Potts, Molecular Dynamics, Discrete Dislocation Dynamics
- Thermo-physical and Mechanical Property Evaluation:
Phase field, Monte Carlo, Molecular Dynamics, Discrete Dislocation Dynamics Internal state variable theories, Continuum plasticity, Gradient plasticity, Crystal plasticity, Damage mechanics, Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics, Discrete Element Methods, Peridynamics
- Multi-time and spatial scale methods, first and higher order homogenization
- Concurrent multi-scale methods
- Experimental investigation and validation"

Amin Mehrabian -Halliburton
Younane Abousleiman - University of Oklahoma

Shale is a heterogeneous, laminated composite of fine-grained minerals and organic matter. Successful exploration, drilling, and completion operations of the upstream energy industry for exploiting subsurface hydrocarbon reserves relies on understanding shale mechanics and physics. The macroscopic structure of porous shale is multiscale and hierarchical, arising from observed variations in pore size distribution which may span from nanometer to centimeter and beyond. This minisymposium calls for the latest contributions in modelling, experimentation, imaging, or characterization of shale. Specific areas of interest are (1) Multiple-porosity and multiple-permeability signature of shale; (2) Current state of knowledge on coupled processes of deformation and fluid flow, as well as heat/mass/ions transfer, in porous shale; (3) Laboratory or field methods of characterizing such physical processes in shale; (4) Numerical or analytical solutions to the applied problems of the oil and gas industry which relate to shale.

Mohammad Javad Abdolhosseini Qomi - Assistant Professor at UCI
Matthieu Vandamme - ENPC, France
Enrico Masoero - Univ of new castle, UK
Konrad Krakowiak - Univ. of Houston

The macroscopic mechano-physical properties of materials are a complex function of their chemical composition and textural characteristics across several length scales down to the atomistic one. To address this complexity, researchers have developed a diverse set of computational, analytical, and experimental tools to explore the composition-structure-property correlation in materials. This mini-symposium calls for interdisciplinary research on materials at the interface of physics, chemistry, material science and solid mechanics. We are interested in a wide range of materials including but not limited to materials (e.g., cementitious, bituminous, geo-materials), glasses, ceramics, and nanocomposites. Physical properties of interest may be stiffness, strength, toughness, creep, heat and mass transport, permeability, and other relevant properties across time and length scales. The multiscale computational studies of interest include quantum chemistry, classical and semi-classical force-field molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo methods, potential of mean-force, coarse-grained mesoscale modeling. Relevant analytical approaches include micro-mechanics-based homogenization techniques and continuum mechanics approaches. From the experimental point of view, we encourage submissions related to materials’ synthesis and characterization via neutron and X-ray scattering techniques, tomography, nanoindentation, and scanning probe microscopy.

Arif Masud - Professor - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Somnath Ghosh, Professor - Johns Hopkins University

This mini-symposium will provide a forum for engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists to discuss recent developments in the broad field of Hierarchical and Multiscale Methods and their application to the Modeling of Materials. A real challenge in this important and emerging area of mechanics is to get the real materials integrated with mechanics to the satisfaction of materials engineers. Given the importance of Simulation Based Design of Materials, the growing interest in the emerging field of Additive Manufacturing that is prompting new developments, and wide application of these methods, this symposium promises to bring together a wide variety of disciplines for the exchange of state-of- the-art technical information on the subject.
The topics to be covered will include:

• Mathematical theory and models for advanced engineered materials
• Emerging hierarchical and multiscale approaches and applications
• Integrating real materials with mechanics
• Process modeling of materials
• Novel material systems
• Parallel computations with advanced material models and methods
• Use of advanced methods in industrial applications.

Christian G. Hoover - Assistant Professor, Arizona State University
Mathieu Bauchy - Assistant Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Enrico Masoero - Lecturer, Newcastle University

The objective of this symposium is to discuss recent advances in science focused on phenomena that imply a slow temporal change of the nano and micro structure of materials (e.g. creep, hydration, ripening, diffusion). All studies that relate to the field of engineering mechanics, including experiments, modeling, and simulation are invited. All types of materials exhibiting a viscous behavior (cement, concrete, geomaterials, granular materials, polymers, metals, glasses, …), all length scales (macroscopic, microscopic, molecular, …), and all time scales are welcome. Especially encouraged are contributions aiming at (i) identifying the physical mechanisms at the origin of time dependent processes, (ii) integrating those physical mechanisms into material modeling (e.g. by upscaling) and into simulations of practical applications, and (iii) addressing important coupled problems in which time dependency plays a role, e.g., in the context of mechanical properties, density of micro- or nano- structure, transport processes in porous materials, of temperature changes and damage evolution, etc.

Marcus P Rutner - Stevens Institute of Technology
Michael J Demkowicz - Texas A&M University

This mini-symposium provides a platform for knowledge dissemination and exchange of innovative ideas concerning the latest developments in the field of nano- and microstructured materials contributing to form the next generation of materials superseding conventional materials. Computational modeling and experimental test methods providing new insights into e.g. the thermal, mechanical, electrical properties of different phases of nano- and microstructured materials and findings on how composition and nano/microstructure affect bulk material behavior are expected contents of this mini-symposium. New findings in processing, testing, measuring and installation of nano- and microstructured materials are of interest. The design of many nano- and microstructured materials is based on empirical approaches and the fundamental materials physics is still unknown. Contributions which shed light on the fundamental physics of nano- and microstructured materials are of particular interest. This mini-symposium welcomes contributions across industries which involve computational and/or experimental studies of the nano- and microstructure of materials affecting the macroscale performance.

Lori Graham-Brady - Johns Hopkins University
Jia-Liang Le - University of Minnesota

Random material heterogeneities lead to localizations associated with damage, fracture and/or failure. This highlights the need for probabilistic models that explicitly incorporate random heterogeneities when attempting to predict failure. This symposium will cover a range of related research topics, which include: characterization and/or simulation of heterogeneous material microstructure, sub-RVE scale homogenization, probabilistic models of damage and fracture, multi-scale stochastic representation of random materials, and scale effects in probabilistic fracture.

Hadi Meidani - University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Vahid Keshavarzzadeh - University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Arash Noshadravan - Texas A&M University

Evergrowing use of computer simulation in civil engineering heavily relies on advances in computational methodologies. These advances should address the computational challenges that arise due to nonlinear behaviors, large size and high dimensionality of civil engineering systems. The aim of this minisymposium is to provide a platform for discussing developments of fast methodologies and toolsets for analysis and design of complex civil engineering systems under uncertainty. We are broadly interested in the application of these efficient stochastic methodologies in various domains of civil engineering and structural mechanics including structural systems, energy systems, water and environmental technology, and transportation networks among others. In particular, contributions on the following topics are of significant interest: reduced order/dimension models, stochastic surrogate approaches, design under uncertainty, Bayesian inference, model calibration, numerical methods for large scale optimization and control, and high performance computing.

Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University, USA
Mircea Grigoriu Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, USA
Athanasios Pantelous Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK
Antonina Pirrotta Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, Aerospaziale, dei Materiali, University of Palermo, Italy

"The field of uncertainty quantification that includes the characterization and propagation of uncertainties associated with complex systems has received considerable interest in recent years. A major portion of the engineering dynamics/mechanics community has focused, with considerable success, on problems with stochastic media properties, random excitations and uncertain initial/boundary conditions. Nevertheless, the development of novel mathematical tools and of potent signal processing techniques, the ever-increasing available computational capabilities, and advanced experimental setups offer a unique novel tool for addressing complex problems for the first time and even posing new questions. Specifically, researchers and engineers are faced with the challenge of interpreting and translating measured data at multiple scales into pertinent stochastic models. In this regard, there is a need for developing robust multi-scale statistical descriptors and stochastic models capable of capturing complex uncertainty relationships. Further, there is a need for developing analytical/numerical methodologies for solving nonlinear high-dimensional stochastic (partial) differential equations efficiently, and for propagating uncertainty across various scales in the time and space domains.
The objective of this MS is to present recent advances and emerging cross-disciplinary approaches in the broad field of numerical methods for engineering stochastic dynamics/mechanics with a focus on uncertainty modeling, and propagation. Further, this MS intends to provide a forum for a fruitful exchange of ideas and interaction among diverse technical and scientific disciplines. Specific contributions related both to fundamental research and to engineering applications of computational stochastic dynamics/mechanics and signal processing methodologies are welcome. A non-exhaustive list includes joint time/space-frequency analysis tools, spectral analysis/estimation subject to highly incomplete/sparse data, efficient high-dimensional functional representation and identification, stochastic/fractional calculus modeling and applications, nonlinear stochastic dynamics, stochastic stability and control theory, multi-scale/multi-physics stochastic modeling and analysis, stochastic model/dimension reduction techniques, Monte Carlo simulation methods, and risk/reliability assessment applications."

Lori Graham-Brady- Johns Hopkins University
Jia-Liang Le - University of Minnesota

Random material heterogeneities lead to localizations associated with damage, fracture and/or failure. This highlights the need for probabilistic models that explicitly incorporate random heterogeneities when attempting to predict failure. This symposium will cover a range of related research topics, which include: characterization and/or simulation of heterogeneous material microstructure, sub-RVE scale homogenization, probabilistic models of damage and fracture, multi-scale stochastic representation of random materials, and scale effects in probabilistic fracture.

Paolo Bocchini-Lehigh University
Michael D. Shields-Johns Hopkins University
Manuel J. Miranda-Hofstra University

"Almost every physical quantity in problems related with Civil Engineering in general, and Engineering Mechanics in particular, is affected by uncertainty, to some extent. Engineers have the role to identify the cases in which an accurate model of such uncertainty is essential to capture correctly the features of the problem at hand. This Minisymposium will collect contributions to the state-of-the-art and the state-of-practice for models of uncertain quantities defined over and correlated across spatial and temporal domains. These random functions (i.e., random processes and fields) are one of the cornerstones of current research, education, and practice touching problems related with structural reliability, hazard modeling, risk assessment, and uncertainty quantification in general. Nevertheless, there are still substantial challenges associated with the characterization, simulation, optimal sampling, and computationally efficient manipulation of random functions, especially when they are non-Gaussian and non-stationary. Leading scholars will be invited to discuss their most recent advancements on the following topics and beyond.
- Mathematical theory of random functions (e.g. wavelet decompositions, optimal series expansions).
- Characterization of random functions (e.g. spectral, statistical, and Bayesian methods).
- Simulation of random functions (e.g. Karhunen-Loeve expansions, spectral representation).
- Optimal sampling of random functions (e.g. stochastic reduced-order models, functional quantization, random sampling).
- Solution strategies for engineering problems involving random functions, such as systems with temporally varying random input, or systems with uncertain and spatially varying material properties (e.g. stochastic ODEs, PDEs).
This Minisymposium is sponsored by the EMI Probabilistic Methods Committee."

Loujaine Mehrez - Viterbi School of Engineering, 210 KAP Hall, University of Southern California
Roger Ghanem - Viterbi School of Engineering, 210 KAP Hall, University of Southern California

"Rapid advancements in manufacturing technologies, experimental and measurement devices, and computational science are producing a paradigm shift in our ability to anticipate the behavior of complex systems. Reliable accounts of the properties and the behavior of such systems encompass a combination of expertise from experimental, physical, computational, and statistical sciences. It has now become possible to address some of the challenging questions pertinent to the behavior and design of complex systems including those that exhibit coupling across multiple physics and multiple scales.
The field of uncertainty quantification offers tools that allows the rational and credible inference of properties and behavior of complex systems. Throughout this process and in order to construct robust predictive models, it is vital to appropriately account for uncertainties and errors associated with multi-physics and multi scale coupling.
In general, the assimilation of experimental measurements is governed by limitation in the quantity and sometimes quality of available data and by incomplete knowledge about the physics. In many cases, it is not possible to directly measure the quantities of interests.
Contributions to this minisymposium will include various aspects of the stochastic computational treatment of complex systems. Such systems include, for instance, random heterogeneous media (e.g., composite materials, infrastructure materials, etc.) and systems whose behavior exhibit coupling across physical processes and spatio-temporal scales. The stochastic computational treatment could include, but not limited to, model-based risk assessment and mitigation, forward propagation of uncertainties, stochastic calibration and optimizaton, stochastic modeling and upscaling, as well as stochastic data assimilation and model updating across physics and scales. "

Arash Noshadravan -Texas A&M University
Zenon Medina-Cetina -Texas A&M University

Evaluating the long-term performance of critical energy infrastructure requires a computational methodology that allows for the risk assessment and management of these systems. This mini-symposium will provide the opportunity to discuss recent advances in developing computational methodologies that support decision-making capabilities relevant to energy infrastructure systems. Of special interest will be the discussion a) of decision-support tools aimed to improve energy infrastructure designed for long-term performance, and b) of reliability based methods developed to improve resilient energy infrastructure. Topics relevant to this session include Economic, social and physical environment aspects of energy developments, Physics-based models for energy simulation, Quantitative risk assessment and management, Maintenance modeling and optimization , Decision-making under uncertainty, Life-cycle system reliability analysis.

Suparno Mukhopadhyay -IIT Kanpur, India
Simos Gerasimidis -University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Raimondo Betti - Columbia University, USA

"The safety assessment of any infrastructure system requires both (a) the knowledge of the expected demands on the system, as well as (b) a measure of its current capacity. Using such information in forward analyses, the safety and functionality of the infrastructure system can be assessed, and, if necessary, appropriate maintenance/retrofitting/control strategies can be designed to counter any loss of capacity or unexpected growth in demand. With the rapid advancement of a variety of data measurement systems, many present day approaches for demand and capacity estimations are data-driven. This mini-symposium aims to provide a platform for discussing this multi-faceted nature of data-based structural safety assessment. Abstracts are invited on:
• identification and statistical modelling of input excitations from measured infrastructure response data and/or direct input measurements
• using continuous monitoring and environmental data for modelling global and/or component level deterioration of aging infrastructure systems, as well as data-based methods for updating such deterioration models
• efficient data-based approaches to quickly detect degradation in condition and/or performance of aging infrastructure
• approaches for identifying or updating physics based (e.g. finite element) models of infrastructure systems using monitoring data
• approaches to quantify uncertainty in identified input models, infrastructure deterioration models and updated structural models
• use of identified input, deterioration, and updated structural models in infrastructure safety assessment through forward analysis (e.g. collapse analysis)
• assessing the effect of localised deterioration on the structural stability of members and systems
• stability-induced collapse of aging systems
• incorporating uncertainties in input, deterioration, and updated structural models in safety assessment, and approaches to improve computational efficiency in such probabilistic forward analysis
• experimental and real-life applications of new/existing methods in the above areas
• case studies on use of measured data in designing of retrofitting or control strategies

Eric M. Hernandez - University of Vermont
Yongming Liu - Arizona State University

"This mini-symposium will serve as a platform for exchange of ideas and knowledge dissemination concerning the latest developments in fatigue damage monitoring, diagnosis and prognosis. Applications in mechanical, civil, electrical, aerospace, naval and biomechanical engineering are welcomed.
Topics of interest include: damage and crack propagation models, fatigue life estimation, fatigue damage prognosis, stress and strain monitoring, load monitoring, multi-scale models, model-data fusion, uncertainty quantification, crack detection, Bayesian methods, stochastic simulation methods for damage prognosis, parameter estimation, design and analysis of fatigue experiments, model verification, validation, calibration, and case studies."

Kenneth Loh - Department of Structural Engineering, University of California, San Diego
Michael Todd - Department of Structural Engineering, University of California, San Diego

"Structural health monitoring and damage prognosis research has been focused on ensuring structural integrity and safety. There are many “structures”, however, that fundamentally enable, empower, or otherwise interface with human being capability, performance, or health. As a result, the structure is only one part of the system. There is a need to sense and augment human behavior and mental states, so as to ensure optimal system performance and functionality. There has been growing interest in developing new or adapting existing sensing technologies/methods for monitoring human performance. This mini-symposium is soliciting contributions focused on sensing the physiological and psychological conditions of human performance, as well as the interactions/interfaces between humans and artificial structural systems. Examples of specific topics of interest are listed as follows:
• Bio-marker and bio-molecular sensing
• Body sensor networks
• Flexible electronics and sensors
• Healthcare applications
• Human performance assessment
• Human protective systems
• Human-machine interfaces
• Human-prosthetic interfaces
• Implantable devices
• In vivo and in vitro applications
• Noninvasive sensing
• Non-contact sensing
• Textile-based sensors
• Wearable technology
• Wireless sensors and sensor networks"

Marcus P Rutner - Stevens Institute of Technology
Ed M Habtour - U.S. Army Research Laboratory
Branko Glisic - Princeton University

Infrastructure systems built out of conventional or new materials undergo aging and deterioration. Continuous information on the condition, the performance level, and the remaining service life of the infrastructure system is required to ensure system safety and is of economic value since maintenance costs increase non-proportionally the longer the defect stays undetected. Most defects are on the micro-length scale when becoming critical, hence are difficult to detect per visual inspection or with conventional sensing technology. This mini-symposium is inviting innovative sensing technologies which enable defect detection and characterization of micro-size defects or so called damage precursors through real-time automated or on-demand sensing. Further, the mini-symposium provides a platform for time-efficient and reliable damage prognostics working with the sensed data. The proof of conceptual ideas, computational approaches, and particularly laboratory and field test results of damage precursor sensing, damage diagnostics and prognostics methodologies are of interest. The mini-symposium invites contributions from all industries and is expected to raise interest among attendees from academia, government agencies and industry.

Fabio Semperlotti - Purdue - Mechanical Engineering
Tyler Tallman - Purdue - Aerospace Engineering

"During the last two decades, the interest of the scientific community in the development and implementation of tomographic technologies have undergone a drastic growth. Owing to its intrinsic potential and to the growing need for non-destructive techniques in many fields of science and engineering, tomographic technology has quickly spread to a variety of disciplines including, but not limited to, biomedics, geophysics, oceanography, structural health monitoring, and non-destructive evaluation of materials.
The sudden extension of these technologies to the engineering community at large has not been followed yet by dedicated technical symposia and opportunities for interactions between different disciplines.
Considering the already existing strong technical content in inverse problems, structural identification, and data processing, EMI is an excellent venue to host a mini-symposium dedicated to cutting edge technologies and applications of tomographic imaging and remote sensing in engineering. This symposium provides an ideal environment for cross-pollination of ideas and exchange of theoretical/numerical/experimental methodologies for tomographic and inverse problems between the most diverse fields of engineering.
This symposium was organized for the first time at EMI 2015 in Stanford and had a very good turn out with about eight authors participating. We organized the symposium also at EMI 2016 in Vanderbilt also with a very good turnout of presenters and, particularly, a very large attendance. We have seen the symposium growing over the past couple of years and we believe that, by making it a recurring appointment at EMI, it will have the potential to become an excellent platform for this line of research in the United States."

Eleni Chatzi - ETH Zurich (Switzerland) Costas Papadimitriou - University of Thessaly (Greece)

"The mini-symposium deals with structural identification methods and applications, as well as structural health monitoring algorithms for damage detection and reliability prognosis. It covers theoretical and computational issues, applications in structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, mechanical and aerospace engineering, as well as other related engineering disciplines. Topics relevant to the session include: theoretical and experimental modal identification, operational modal analysis, linear and nonlinear system identification, statistical system identification methods (maximum-likelihood, Bayesian inference) for parameter and state estimation, model updating/validation and correlation, uncertainty quantification in model selection and parameter estimation, stochastic simulation techniques for state estimation and model class selection, structural health monitoring and fault detection techniques, optimal strategies for experimental design, optimal sensor and actuator location methods, structural prognosis techniques, updating response and reliability predictions using data. Papers dealing with experimental investigation and verification of theories are especially welcomed.
This MS is organized under the auspices of the EMI Dynamics Committee EMI Structural Control and Health Monitoring Committee"

Heung Fai LAM - City University of Hong Kong
Jiahua YANG City - University of Hong Kong
Siu-Kui AU - University of Liverpool

"This mini-symposium aims at providing a forum for recent research dealing with vibration measurement, modal identification and model updating, and their applications in structural health monitoring of civil engineering structures. It covers theoretical, computational, experimental work and field test case studies on developments of vibration-based modal identification and/or model updating with possible applications in structural health monitoring of a wide range of engineering structures including structural damage detection of various structural components. Specific topics may include, but not limited to:
1. Ambient and forced vibration measurement, including design and implementation of new or improved experiments and technologies
2. Experimental and operational modal analysis, including development of novel and efficient algorithms for real applications and case studies of structures with special features
3. Structural model updating, e.g., development of efficient algorithms for large-scale problems and applications in field tests
4. Integral application of vibration measurement, modal analysis and model updating for assessment of structural performance, evaluation of structural status and structural design
5. Structural damage detection and nondestructive evaluation, including novel technologies and applications in different areas such as mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering and earthquake engineering
6. Structural health monitoring, e.g., efficient monitoring systems for large-scale civil engineering structures like super-tall buildings and bridges"

Mohammad Jahanshahi - Assistant Professor, Purdue University
Shirley Dyke - Professor, Purdue University

It is generally accepted that computer vision will drive the next revolution in information and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, due to the recent advances in sensor technology and computational capability of computers, the use of vision-based approaches for condition assessment of structures provides an unprecedented opportunity to improve the resilience of structural systems. Moreover, these approaches are contactless and appropriate to be incorporated in mobile sensing robots such as unmanned aerial vehicles. This mini-symposium will provide the opportunity to discuss recent theoretical, computational and experimental advances in using computer vision and machine learning approaches for structural identification, control and health monitoring. Topics relevant to this session include, but not limited to, data collection and analysis, damage detection, classification, quantification and localization, change recognition, displacement and dynamic measurements, deep visual learning, sensor calibration, fusion and optimization, scene reconstruction, activity monitoring, and new emerging vision-based technologies.

Frederic BUMBIELER - Andra (French national radioactive waste management agency)
Ali LIMAM - LMC2 - Université de Lyon, France

"The intent of this symposium is to bring together researchers investigating the mechanical behavior of confined structures and components. In many civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering applications (tunnel supports, buried pipelines or tanks, sandwich structures, steel shells reinforcement …) shell structures are subjected to various (thermo)mechanical loading conditions while being confined within a total or partial surrounding medium or adjacent structures in contact. In most cases an external mechanical load is applied on the confined structure, sometimes itself subjected to a thermal load and a possible progressive degradation (corrosion, plasticity, microcracking, …) so that it will buckle when a critical level of compressive stresses is reached or a critical amplitude of geometrical imperfection is obtained due to material creep. If it is well known that a confined structure will buckle at higher pressure than an unconstraint one, its overall mechanical behavior is strongly dependent on the properties of the confining medium and contact conditions (with adhesion or not), the external loading characteristics (stress or displacement loading, hydrostatic or anisotropic), but also material creep with a weak or strong interaction with defects or damage depending their wavelength.
This symposium will bring together the structural engineering industry with academia aiming to provide insights on the actual engineering mechanics of locally or totally confined structures. Topics relevant to the session include (but are not limited to): analytical and numerical investigations of the stability of steel, composite, concrete and/or multilayered confined structures, experimental techniques for mechanical behavior and stability tests on mock-up, in-situ measurements of the mechanical behavior of confined structures, buckling and post-buckling analysis (theoretical and experimental) of sandwich confined structures.
The initial speakers list includes Stelios Kyriakides (University of Texas at Austin), Spyros Karamanos (University of Thessaly), Hassan Karampour (Griffith University), Theodoro Netto (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Ali Limam (University of Lyon), The Nguyen (INSA de Lyon), Dinh Cuong (INSA de Lyon), Mohammed Hjiaj (INSA de Rennes), Frédéric Bumbieler (Andra)"

Simos Gerasimidis - Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
George Deodatis - Professor, Columbia University

On the forefront of structural engineering mechanics problems today lays the problem of robustness or progressive collapse. The aging of infrastructures and the very high multilevel consequences associated with the phenomenon have raised progressive collapse as one of the most important structural engineering mechanics problems. Progressive collapse can be initiated by numerous sources including construction or design flaws which surpass the common design base of current codes. Triggering events can be extreme events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, abnormal loads not included in the design like gas explosions, vehicle impacts, fire or extreme environmental loads which push the structural system well beyond its strength envelope. In this framework, all infrastructure is vulnerable to progressive collapse at some level. This mini-symposium will bring together the structural engineering industry with academia aiming to provide insights on the actual engineering mechanics of progressive collapse.

Jifeng Xu - Beijing Aeronautical Science & Technology Research Institute
Ahmer Wadee - Imperial College London
Yang Xiang - Western Sydney University

"Abstract: Structural and material stability studies analyse and assess the risks and prevent unintentional structural collapse and material failure. This minisymposium supported by the ASCE EMI Stability Committee is to provide a forum to discuss recent advances and address the future prospects in the area of stability and failure mechanics of structural components, systems and materials. Interested researchers are invited to submit abstracts on topics which include, but are not limited to:
• Stability of columns, beams, plates, shells and sandwich structures;
• Stability of members made from metal and composite materials;
• Buckling and post-buckling analysis: analytical and computational models and methods;
• Dynamic stability problems;
• Interactive buckling and non-local mechanics;
• Failure mechanics of materials including cracks, delaminations and micro-buckling;
• Buckling of micro/nano structures;
• Stability of orthotropic, anisotropic and hybrid materials;
• Instabilities in layered and granular media including shear and kink band formation;
• Testing techniques and fixture design for structural and material stability tests；
• Stochastic stability analysis;
• Stability of component members made by additive manufacturing techniques."

Arghavan Louhghalam - University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Franz-Josef Ulm - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Roger Ghanem - University of Southern California
Marta Gonzalez - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Development of quantitative frameworks for sustainable design and maintenance processes requires modeling of infrastructures as complex systems. This mini symposium of EMI 2017 aims at providing a forum for researchers in the field of quantitative engineering sustainability to discuss state-of-the-art techniques and models developed for assessing the sustainability performance of engineering infrastructures. Latest contributions on developing mechanics- and physics-based models for assessing the energy efficiency of buildings and pavements, modeling of cities and transportation networks, modeling of human-built environment interactions, incorporation of uncertainty in parameters affecting environmental footprint of engineering structures, application of big data analytics in building predictive models as well as application of novel sustainable design tools in maintenance and design practices are invited.

Rigoberto Burgueno - Michigan State University
Han Hu - Dartmouth College

A change in perspective has emerged during the past decade towards the harnessing of elastic structural instabilities for “smart” purposes in a variety of avenues. Among the different types of unstable responses, buckling is a phenomenon that has been known for centuries, and yet it is generally avoided through special design considerations. Other than the well-known effect on load-carrying capacity, buckling also involves high-rate motion and sudden energy release. These two features make buckling an ideal mechanism for adaptive and smart applications. Thus, increasing interests in the design of smart devices and mechanical systems have identified elastic buckling and postbuckling response as favorable and increasing studies are demonstrating the use of such behavior across disciplines. A community of scholars focused on this research topic has grown rapidly over the past 10 years. Buckling behavior is controlled primarily by the geometry of slender elements, and the particular interest on elastic response makes it applicable across scales. Considerable research is being conducted to understand the mechanics of elastic buckling and postbuckling response for a variety of structural prototypes with particular emphasis on applications to devices. Studies on 1D (beams) and 3D (cylinders) forms range from applications to energy harvesting, sensing, and energy dissipators. While research attention is strongly leaning towards lower-scales for developing mechanically-engineered materials, usage in macro-scale devices and structural elements is becoming clear and activity on this front is emerging. The aim of the proposed symposium is to provide impetus to this emerging focus by bringing attention to the harnessing elastic buckling and postbuckling response for innovations in sustainable and resilient infrastructure. The symposium will allow participants and attendants to exchange findings from current research activities and to identify emerging trends.

Mohammed Ettouney- Mohammed Ettouney, LLC

"Resilience emerged lately as a major issue for society, especially given the magnitude of disaster costs of different kinds. As any emerging important issue, the knowledge gaps within the subject of resilience are enormous. The Objective Resilience Committee (ORC) of the Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is developing an Objective Resilience Primer (ORP) which aims at exploring some of the issues regarding objective resilience. The ORP includes four parts. Part I addresses resilience definitions, standards, and social and economic subjects. Part II addresses processes and methodologies including variables, links, graph networks and uncertainties. Part III focuses on different technologies which might be of help in objectifying resilience and Part IV looks at applications, including different components of resilience management as applied to several types of civil infrastructures such as buildings, bridges, mass transit stations and tunnels.
The proposed mini symposium will include presentations from different authors of the chapters of the MOP. The presentations include, but not limited to: from part I: resilience definitions, resilience standards, and resilience initiatives. From part II, the presentations include different resilience dimensions, networks methods, uncertainties, acceptance, communications and links. Part III presentations includes advanced materials, remote sensing and structural health monitoring as applied to enhancing resilience performance. Finally, part IV presentation offers pertinent case studies and applications."

Hamed Ebrahimian - Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, California Institute of Technology
Babak Moaveni - Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University Joel
P. Conte - Professor, Department of Structural Engineering, University of California, San Diego

"The goal of the minisymposium is to collect research and application studies that focus on performance and resilience evaluation of civil structures using measured data. We invite contributions from the fields of modeling, system identification and model inversion, uncertainty quantification, and risk estimation that are gauged towards performance and resilience assessment. The breadth of proposed topics promotes looking at the subject of performance and resilience assessment through structural identification, estimation, simulation, and prediction considering real-world complexities and uncertainties.
Topics relevant to this minisymposium include: inverse modeling, estimation, identification, and sensing for monitoring and condition assessment of structural systems; modeling and response simulation for probabilistic demand prediction and capacity assessment of civil infrastructures; stochastic modeling techniques for damage prognosis and propagating the uncertainties to the response of civil infrastructure to future loads; assessment of pre-event aging and deterioration, and post-event remaining useful life, reliability, and risk of operation of civil infrastructures and systems; risk- and reliability-informed methods to guide emergency response, inspection, retrofit, and rehabilitation considering community-level resilience enhancement strategies (i.e., resources, time, cost, and performance optimization); modeling, prediction, and uncertainty quantification of system-level financial, and community-level economical, and/or societal post-disaster consequences. Research studies that address experimental investigations and validation of theories or analytical approaches are especially welcome. "

Fariborz M. Tehrani - California State University, Fresno
Arezoo Sadrinezhad - California State University, Fresno
Maryam Nazari - California State University, Fresno

This Mini-Symposia (MS) aims to provide a forum to discuss recent advancement in the area of sustainable and resilient structural engineering, mechanics, and materials (SR-SEMM). The topic of sustainable built environment has been the major focus in academic research and industrial practice, particularly in the field of SEMM. The rise in climate-related-disasters, constant challenges in energy sector and substantial shift in consumer’s conscious toward conservation of natural resources are the major forces behind sustainable engineering. Further, sustainability and resilience of infrastructures contribute to their long-term efficiency and serviceability. Many code-writing bodies have developed guidelines and specifications to implement sustainable practices and rate their impacts. Although, many professionals are familiar with common sustainable practices recognized by these documents, they are not necessarily comfortable with implementation of innovative materials and methods in engineering mechanics, such as composites, upcycled materials, bio-inspired materials, and Nano-mechanics. Moreover, appraising the feasibility of any sustainable practice requires knowledge of analytical procedures, including lifecycle cost analysis (LCA) and decision-making tools, in a context-sensitive design. Further, production, transportation, and application of materials require additional resources, like energy and land, and cause additional impacts, including greenhouse gases, noise, and pollution. Following ENVISION guidelines for rating sustainable practices, this MS seeks research and practice papers on how SR-SEMM contributes to (a) reduction of net-embodied energy, energy consumption, and water consumption, (b) reduction of land and water contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, and air pollutant emissions, (c) enhancing long-term adaptability and extending useful life of infrastructures, and (d) minimizing noise, vibration, and other adverse impacts on communities.