Computational Modeling of Issues in Materials Science

The Symposium D, entitled Computational Modeling of Issues in Materials Science was presented at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997.

Those who attended came from all five continents with participants coming from as far away as South Africa, Australia and Eastern Europe. There were 14 invited talks, 54 contributed papers, and 62 posters presented at the symposium.

Computational materials science has truly emerged as a field in itself. The range of phenomena studied and the variety of techniques used indicate that the subject has sufficiently matured that technologically relevant information can now be routinely extracted from computational modeling. These models increasingly use atomistic information from which macroscopic parameters may be determined.

Several papers showed that parallel computers will play a major role in the further development of the field. The Car-Parrinello method emerged as a workhorse for the most advanced simulations which the advent of faster hardware and diffusion of computer codes has brought within easy reach of many research groups. How to consistently go from the micro- to the macro-scale remains one of the great unsolved puzzles in computational materials science and was the subject of much discussion at the symposium. The interdisciplinary side of computational studies of matter was demonstrated in several talks, where authors borrowed methods from nuclear physics, fluid dynamics, and other subjects.

This was a very productive symposium with new collaborations started, many novel ideas generated and a large amount of information disseminated. The meeting gave an excellent idea of the status of computational materials service anno 1997.