Proceedings of the 20th International Conference. The Conferences on Boundary Element and Meshless Techniques are devoted to fostering the continued involvement of the research community in identifying new problem areas, mathematical procedures, innovative applications, and novel solution techniques as applied to the Boundary Element Method and Meshless Techniques. Previous conferences devoted to were held in London, UK (1999), New Jersey, USA (2001), Beijing, China (2002), Granada, Spain (2003), Lisbon, Portugal (2004), Montreal, Canada (2005), Paris, France (2006), Naples, Italy (2007), Seville, Spain (2008), Athens, Greece (2009), Berlin, Germany (2010), Brasilia, Brazil (2011), Prague, Czech Republic (2012), Paris, France (2013), Florence, Italy (2014), Valencia, Spain (2015), Ankara, Turkey (2016), Bucharest, Romania (2017) and Malaga Spain (2018).

The aim of this book is intended, through parallel expounding, to help readers comprehensively grasp the intrinsic features of typical advanced computational methods. These methods are created in recent three decades for the understanding of the post-failure of geo-materials accompanied with discontinuous and finite deformation/dislocation, as well as the violent fluid-structure interaction accompanied with strong distortion of water surface. The strong points and weak points of the formalisms for governing equations, the discretization schemes, the nodal interpolation /approximation of field variables, and their connectivity (via support domains, covers, or enrichments), the basic algorithms, etc., are clarified. Being aware of that the differences in these methods are not so large as at the first glance, this book will help readers to select appropriate methods, to improve the methods for their specific purpose, and to evaluate the reliability/applicability of the outcomes in the hazard evaluation of geotechnical (hydraulic) structures beyond extreme work situation. This book may be looked at as an advanced continuation of “Computational Geomechanics and Hydraulic Structures” by the author (2018) (Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-981-10-8134-7) which elaborates the fundamental computational methods in geomechanics for the routine design of geotechnical (hydraulic) engineering.

In recent years meshless/meshfree methods have gained considerable attention in engineering and applied mathematics. The variety of problems that are now being addressed by these techniques continues to expand and the quality of the results obtained demonstrates the effectiveness of many of the methods currently available. The book presents a significant sample of the state of the art in the field with methods that have reached a certain level of maturity while also addressing many open issues. The book collects extended original contributions presented at the Second ECCOMAS Conference on Meshless Methods held in 2007 in Porto. The list of contributors reveals a fortunate mix of highly distinguished authors as well as quite young but very active and promising researchers, thus giving the reader an interesting and updated view of different meshless approximation methods and their range of applications. The material presented is appropriate for researchers, engineers, physicists, applied mathematicians and graduate students interested in this active research area.

Bituminous materials are used to build durable roads that sustain diverse environmental conditions. However, due to their complexity and a global shortage of these materials, their design and technical development present several challenges. Advanced Testing and Characterisation of Bituminous Materials focuses on fundamental and performance testing

Meshfree approximation methods are a relatively new area of research. This book provides the salient theoretical results needed for a basic understanding of meshfree approximation methods. It places emphasis on a hands-on approach that includes MATLAB routines for all basic operations.

Meshfree approximation methods are a relatively new area of research, and there are only a few books covering it at present. Whereas other works focus almost entirely on theoretical aspects or applications in the engineering field, this book provides the salient theoretical results needed for a basic understanding of meshfree approximation methods.The emphasis here is on a hands-on approach that includes MATLAB routines for all basic operations. Meshfree approximation methods, such as radial basis function and moving least squares method, are discussed from a scattered data approximation and partial differential equations point of view. A good balance is supplied between the necessary theory and implementation in terms of many MATLAB programs, with examples and applications to illustrate key points. Used as class notes for graduate courses at Northwestern University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Vanderbilt University, this book will appeal to both mathematics and engineering graduate students.

Covering the latest developments in the field of boundary elements, this work contains a selection of papers presented at the 21st International Conference on the topic. The 70 papers have been contributed by researchers from many countries and are divided under various headings.

The finite difference method (FDM) hasbeen used tosolve differential equation systems for centuries. The FDM works well for problems of simple geometry and was widely used before the invention of the much more efficient, robust finite element method (FEM). FEM is now widely used in handling problems with complex geometry. Currently, we are using and developing even more powerful numerical techniques aiming to obtain more accurate approximate solutions in a more convenient manner for even more complex systems. The meshfree or meshless method is one such phenomenal development in the past decade, and is the subject of this book. There are many MFree methods proposed so far for different applications. Currently, three monographs on MFree methods have been published. Mesh Free Methods, Moving Beyond the Finite Element Method d by GR Liu (2002) provides a systematic discussion on basic theories, fundamentals for MFree methods, especially on MFree weak-form methods. It provides a comprehensive record of well-known MFree methods and the wide coverage of applications of MFree methods to problems of solids mechanics (solids, beams, plates, shells, etc.) as well as fluid mechanics. The Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) Method d by Atluri and Shen (2002) provides detailed discussions of the meshfree local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) method and itsvariations. Formulations and applications of MLPG are well addressed in their book.