During the last decades, applications of dynamical analysis in advanced, often nonlinear, engineering systems have been evolved in a revolutionary way. In this context one can think of applications in aerospace engineering like satellites, in naval engineering like ship motion, in mechanical engineering like rotating machinery, vehicle systems, robots and biomechanics, and in civil engineering like earthquake dynamics and offshore technology. One could continue with this list for a long time. The application of advanced dynamics in the above fields has been possible due to the use of sophisticated computational techniques employing powerful concepts of nonlinear dynamics. These concepts have been and are being developed in mathematics, mechanics and physics. It should be remarked that careful experimental studies are vitally needed to establish the real existence and observability of the predicted dynamical phenomena. The interaction between nonlinear dynamics and nonlinear control in advanced engineering systems is becoming of increasing importance because of several reasons. Firstly, control strategies in nonlinear systems are used to obtain desired dynamic behaviour and improved reliability during operation, Applications include power plant rotating machinery, vehicle systems, robotics, etc. Terms like motion control, optimal control and adaptive control are used in this field of interest. Since mechanical and electronic components are often necessary to realize the desired action in practice, the engineers use the term mechatronics to indicate this field. If the desired dynamic behaviour is achieved by changing design variables (mostly called system parameters), one can think of fields like control of chaos.

This volume contains selected papers presented at the Symposium on "Recent Developments in Non-linear Oscillations of Mechanical Systems", held in Hanoi, Vietnam, from 2 - 5 March 1999. This Symposium was initiated and sponsored by the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (lUI AM) and organised in conjunction with Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Ihe purpose of the Symposium was to bring together scientists active in different fields of oscillations with the aim to review the recent progress in theory of oscillations and engineering applications and to outline the prospects in its further achievements to then co-ordinate and direct research in this field to further co-operation between scientists and various scientific institutions. An International Scientific Committee was appointed by the Bureau of IUI AM with the following members: Nguyen Van Dao (Vietnam, Co-Chairman) E.J. Kreuzer (Germany, Co-Chairman) D.H. van Campen (The Netherlands) F.L. Chernousko (Russia) A.H. Nayfeh (U.S.A) Nguyen Xuan Hung (Vietnam) W.O. Schiehlen (Germany) J.M.T. Thompson (U.K) Y. Veda (Japan). This Committee selected the participants to be invited and the papers to be presented at the Symposium. As a result of this procedure, 52 active scientists from 16 countries responded to the invitation, and 42 papers were presented in lecture and poster discussion sessions.

In the last decades, new experimental and numerical techniques have taken many advanced features of porous media mechanics down to practical engineering applications. This happened in areas that sometimes were not even suspected to be open to engineering ideas at all. The challenge that often faces engineers in the field of geomechanics, biomechanics, rheology and materials science is the translation of ideas existing in one field to solutions in the other. The purpose of the IUTAM symposium from which this proceedings volume has been compiled was to dive deep into the mechanics of those porous media that involve mechanics and chemistry, mechanics and electromagnetism, mechanics and thermal fluctuations of mechanics and biology. The different sections have purposely not been formed according to field interest, but on the basis of the physics involved.

This volume contains the proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium on Elastohydrodynamics and Microelastohydrodynamics held in Cardiff from 1-3 September 2004. It contains 31 articles by leading researchers in the field. The symposium focused on theoretical, experimental and computational issues in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) both in relation to smooth surfaces and in situations where the film is of the same order or thinner than the surface roughness (micro-EHL). The last IUTAM Symposium in this general area of contact of deformable bodies was in 1974. The emphasis in the Symposium was upon fundamental issues such as: solution methods; lubricant rheological models, thermal effects; both low and high elastic modulus situations; human and replacement joints; fluid traction; dynamic effects, asperity lubrication and the failure of lubrication; surface fatigue and thermal distress under EHL conditions. The book will be useful to those active in basic elastohydrodynamics research who wish to gain an up-to-date understanding of the subject from leading experts in the field.

The IUTAM Symposium on Mechanical and Electromagnetic Waves in Structured Media took place at the University of Sydney from January 18- 22, 1999. It brought together leading researchers from eleven countries for a week-long meeting, with the aim of providing cross-links between the com- nities studying related problems involving elastic and electromagnetic waves in structured materials. After the meeting, participants were invited to submit articles based on their presentations, which were refereed and assembled to constitute these Proceedings. The topics covered here represent areas at the forefront of research intoelastic and electromagnetic waves. They include effect of nonlinearity, diffusion and multiple scattering on waves, as well as asymptotic and numerical techniques. Composite materials are discussed in depth, with example systems ranging fromdusty plasmas to a magneto-elastic microstructured system. Also included are studies of homogenisation, that field which seeks to determine equivalent homogeneous systems which can give equivalent wave properties to structured materials, and inverse problems, in which waves are used as a probe to infer structural details concerning scattering systems. There are also strong groups of papers on the localization of waves by random systems, and photonic and phononic band gap materials. These are being developed by analogue with semiconductors for electrons, and hold out the promise of enabling designers to control the propagation of waves through materials in novel ways. We would like to thank the other members of the Scientific Committee (A.

This book is a collection of selected reviewed papers that were presented at the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Symposium "Mechanical waves for composite structures characterization". The Symposium took place June 14-17, 2000 in Chania, Crete, Greece. As is customary, IUTAM Symposia Proceedings are published in the series "Solid Mechanics and Its Applications" by Kluwer Academic Publishers. I am indebted to Professor G. M. L. Gladwell who is the series editor. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to Professor M. A. Hayes the Secretary General of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and a member ofthe Symposium's Scientific Committee. His constant encouragement and support made the Symposium not only possible but also successful. To the success also contributed all the members of the Symposium's Scientific Committee which I had the honor to chair. I express my appreciation to each one of them who are: Professor J. D. Achenbach (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA), Professor M. A. Hayes (University College, Dublin, Ireland), Professor K. J. Langenberg (University of Kassel, Germany), Professor A. K. Mal (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Professor X. Markenscoff (University of California, San Diego, USA), Professor S. Nair (Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA), Professor R. W. Ogden (University of Glasgow, UK), Professor G.

This book presents the latest research results in the area of applied nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory. Papers by three academic generations address new applications of nonlinear dynamics to mechanics, including fluid-structure interaction, machining and mechanics of solids, and many other applications.