19th International Conference - BEM/19, University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Italy, 9-11 September 1997

Citation

Brebbia, C.A. (1998), "19th International Conference - BEM/19, University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Italy, 9-11 September 1997", Kybernetes, Vol. 27 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1998.06727bab.003

19th International Conference - BEM/19, University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Italy, 9-11 September 1997

19th International Conference ­ BEM/19, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy, 9-11 September 1997

The 19th International Conference on Boundary Element Methods (BEM) was held at the School of Engineering, University of La Sapienza in Rome from 9-11 September 1997.

The conference was co-organised by that Institute and the Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT) and co-chaired by Professor Mario Marchetti and Carlos Brebbia.

During the inaugural sessions, Carlos pointed out that WIT was proud to be associated with the School of Engineering at La Sapienza and grateful to the dean, Professor Gianni Orlandi, for having made available the conference facilities there, which included the beautifully and newly restored cloisters where some of the conference sessions took place.

The first of these conferences started in Southampton in 1978 and since then the series has continued to grow and become the focus of all new research in boundary element methods. The degree of maturity of the technique is evident by the material published in the conference book.

Carlos pointed out that the series of 20 to 25 conferences organised by WIT every year is an essential part of WIT's activities which can be described as technology transfer at an international level. The process of transfer is achieved not only through conferences but also through an active programme of research and PhD training.

WIT has graduated approximately 40 PhDs since starting in 1986, which is a considerable achievement for an institution of that size. All these graduates are now in positions of responsibility in industry and academia.

The degrees of WIT are validated through the University of Wales and the Institute has recently become associated to the prestigious Civil Engineering Department at Swansea. WIT hopes that this association will help to strengthen its numerical modelling capabilities.

WIT is always open to new suggestions for collaboration with other institutions in other countries, including collaborative research projects, the development of joint Masters degree courses and many other initiatives.

An important activity associated with WIT is the publication of scientific material. At present CMP Publications produces 60 new volumes per year, only half of which are conference proceedings; the rest are state-of-the-art books, advanced computational textbooks and electronic material mainly in CD format. One of the latest initiatives has been the launching of a new series in Advances in BEM. (The book is available from CMP Publications, Ashurst Lodge, Ashurst, Southampton, Hants SO40 7AA, UK. Price: £225. ISBN: 1 85312 472 9.)

The original ISBE newsletter (Boundary Elements Communications) has now developed into a learned publication called the International Journal of Boundary Element Methods and ways in which the publication could be improved were discussed during the ISBE meeting which took place during the conference.

The conference was opened by a keynote address given by Professor Paolo Santini on the topic of "New developments in aeroelasticity" where he presented some of his insights into this field and results produced by his own results.

Conference sessions included space methods; structural dynamics; stress analysis; computational aspects; contact mechanics; fracture mechanics; fluid mechanics; structural dynamics; thermal problems; plate bending; industrial applications; electrical and electromagnetic problems; numerical integration; inelastic problems; sensitivity analysis and optimisation; high performance computing and parallelisation and acoustics.

Another activity which took place during the conference was a meeting of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements (EABE). During the meeting the progress of the journal was discussed and special mention was made to the excellent scientific standard of the publication as evidenced by the high "input factors" achieved by EABE. The issue of new special issues on topics of current interest was discussed as well as the possibility of increasing the number of issues in 1999 to cater for the growth in the paper flow. The board expressed its satisfaction with the way in which the journal is progressing.

The conference banquet was held in the beautiful setting of the Palazzo Brancaccio, the latest of the Patrician houses built in Rome in 1880, near the part of Rome where the famous "Domus Aurra" of Nero was located. The surroundings of the dinner, the excellence of the food and the musical accompaniment made the evening a truly memorable occasion for the members of the boundary element community, many of whom showed their hidden talents for singing and dancing during the evening.

The meeting was closed by a few remarks by Carlos and a film produced by Paulo Santini on the "Sense of Honour in Roman Art" in which he described some unusual sites throughout the city. The day after the talk, Professor Santini was able to take a small group of participants on a walking tour of some of the places described in the film.

Delegates were most complimentary about the technical concepts of the meeting and the choice of venue. WIT will endeavour to keep these standards for the next conference (BEM/20) to be held from 19-21 August 1998 in Orlando, Florida, USA.

C.A. BrebbiaDirector, WIT