IUTAM Symposium on Progress in the Theory and Numerics of Configurational Mechanics

Con. gurational mechanics has attracted quite a bit of attention from various - search. elds over the recent years/decades. Having been regarded in its infancy of the early years as a somewhat obscureand almost mystic. eld of researchthat could only be understood by a happy few of insiders with a pronounced theoretical inc- nation, con. gurational mechanics has developed by now into a versatile tool that can be applied to a variety of problems. Since the seminal works of Eshelby a general notion of con. gurational - chanics has been developed and has successfully been applied to many pr- lems involving various types of defects in continuous media. The most pro- nent application is certainly the use of con. gurational forces in fracture - chanics. However, as con. gurational mechanics is related to arbitrary mat- ial inhomogeneities it has also very successfully been applied to many ma- rials science and engineering problems such as phase transitions and inelastic deformations. Also the modeling of materials with micro-structure evolution is an important. eld, in which con. gurational mechanics can provide a better understanding of processes going on within the material. Besides these mechanically, physically, and chemically motivated applications, ideas from con. gurational mechanics are now increasingly applied within computational mechanics.