US National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics: Recent Trends in Mechanics

Call for Proposals: Recent Trends in Mechanics

The US National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNCTAM) publishes periodic Reports on Recent Trends in Mechanics. An archive of past reports can be found at the Committee’s website: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/biso/IUTAM/PGA_069657. The USNCTAM has reorganized the process for generating such reports; a SubCommittee (K. Ravi-Chandar, Chair (ravi@utexas.edu), G. McKinley, (gareth@MIT.EDU), A. Karagozian (ark@seas.ucla.edu) and R. Ghanem (ghanem@usc.edu)) has been charged with developing these reports.

The guideline provided by the Strategic Planning Committee of the USNCTAM is that every member of the committee should spearhead the development of at least one report during his/her tenure on the committee. Three types of reports are planned:

• Focused topical reports or review articles publishable in archival or trade journals on specific areas identifying current and future trends on a topic in mechanics. Two examples of recent reports, one on fluid mechanics and computational mechanics and composite materials, are available at the USNCTAM website; review articles should follow the guidelines of the appropriate journal. In either case, the report will be distributed by the USNCTAM in print and electronically.

• Applications-related reports that highlight the importance of various areas of mechanics to critical national needs in science and technology. Examples could include “U.S. energy needs and critical contributions from mechanics research” or “U.S. environmental issues and technical contributions in mechanics”. The intent is that these reports contain high level information that is of use to and helps to influence policy makers when national research priorities are under discussion. The reports would also contain detailed discussions that would be of interest to research community. It is expected that these reports will be prepared in cooperation with a number of colleagues in academia, government laboratories, and industry.

• Web-based reports, blogs, discussion groups, etc, that take advantage of internet based tools. These could follow formats of various blogs; we could emulate the successful model of iMechanica.org and provide a continuous forum for discussion of research trends. This requires ‘Moderators’ who are willing to engage in such continuous discussions. In addition to discussion groups, these could also become repositories of commentaries, archive for mechanics success stories, and general source for promotion of mechanics.

We solicit proposals for developing/writing such reports in any of the above formats. Researchers interested in developing Reports on Recent Trends in Mechanics in any of the above formats should send a proposal by e-mail to ravi@utexas.edu with the subject line “USNCTAM-Reports” before April 30, 2015. The proposal should contain the following:

1. Title

2. Proposed Authors/Coordinators and their contact information

3. A 200-word statement indicating the importance of the topic, the timeliness of the report, potential audience (policy makers or researchers)

The decision of the USNCTAM will be communicated by May 31, 2015; one member of the USNCTAM will be added as coordinator/co-author of the report. Selected authors will be required to submit the completed report within six months (November 30, 2015). The report will then be reviewed by the USNCTAM prior to approval and publication. If you need additional information, please do not hesitate to contact one of the Subcommittee members.