Welcome to the Workshop on Nonlocal Damage and Failure: Peridynamics and Other Nonlocal Models

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Welcome to the Workshop on Nonlocal Damage and Failure: Peridynamics and Other Nonlocal Models  to be held in San Antonio, Texas, March 11-12, 2013, sponsored by the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics  and by the Center for Simulation Visualization and Real-Time Prediction (SiViRT). Nonlocal models have recently shown ability to predict damage and failure in materials. Nonlocality can help capture the effective material behavior for problems in which the microstructure has a dynamics that influences the evolution of damage and failure in the material or structure. Nonlocal models allow for representing fracture and damage within a single, unified description. Modeling the dynamic behavior of complex materials (heterogeneous, anisotropic, etc.) through failure benefits from nonlocal formulations.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together, for the first time, experts in damage and failure of materials working with, or interested in, nonlocal models. The workshop participants will:

  1. Present their latest results on materials modeling using nonlocal models, bridging-scales and multiphysics applications in which nonlocal modeling makes an impact,
  2. Exchange ideas with engineers and applied mathematicians on the most important open problems in nonlocal modeling and analysis, and
  3. Discuss and establish future directions of development for nonlocal models in connection to the needs expressed by the funding agencies.

Of particular interest for the participants in the workshop is the identification of new areas of research and applications in which nonlocality can provide solutions to challenging problems, the close examination of connections between different nonlocal theories, and the establishment of new collaborations between computational scientists and engineers, applied mathematicians, and numerical analysts, on nonlocal topics. An integral part of this workshop will be discussions on the needs expressed by funding agencies (DoD, DOE, NSF, NIH, etc.) and industry (Boeing, Exxon Mobil, SwRI, etc.), and the potential solutions offered by nonlocal models.