摘要
In the year 2011,Tsinghua University is going to celebrate her 100th anniversary (1911-2011).For this event,Science China Press invites me to organize a special issue contributed by faculty of the Department of Engineering Mechanics (DEM).In addition to marking their research strength and pioneering work at this historical moment,we also anticipate more collaborations between DEM and other institutes.
Since a broad range of issues in material science involves multiple scales in space and time, multi-scale modeling and simulation of materials is currently one of the major research topics in material science worldwide. The various levels of material modeling can be roughly grouped into microscopic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic regimes. The microscopic scale refers to atomic level and lattice defect ensembles below the grain scale, from electronic first-principles to atomic molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods. Mesoscopic scale refers to lattice defect ensembles at the grain scale, and a typical simulation method at this scale is the phase field. Macroscopic scale refers to the sample geometry represented by a finite element method. These computer simulation methods of different scales have proven to be very useful for the study of fundamental physics, structure and properties of materials, which are not easily accessible via experiment. Moreover, with the advance in computing power, these methods have developed in a remarkable way, not only at the respective space and time scales but also at the couplings between the different scales. They are now becoming increasingly applicable for material processing and performance prediction in advanced engineering and technology applications.
