Over the past several decades, there has been significant progress toward understanding the behavior of complex, jointed structures through study of their dynamic behavior as well as the related interface mechanics. These structures are pervasive, not only in infrastructural systems but also across the full range of manufactured components and systems, some of which are crucial to the national defense. Significant understanding has been achieved by researchers throughout the world, and particularly in the United States, Europe and Asia, through research programs combining analysis, computation and physical experiments on a range of scales. However, the notion of a fully predictive method of analysis for complex, jointed structures, taking micro-scale measueables such as local material and surface properties at the joint interface and returning accurate macro-scale parameters such as local stiffness and damping remains elusive. This proposal seeks funding to underwrite a portion of the organizational and on-site expenses of the workshop as well as the travel expenses for a number of international participants. Additional workshop funds, as well as assistance for travel of domestic participants, will be provided by the Sandia National Labs. Broader Impacts: The workshop will be unique by virtue of the technical diversity of its participants. A subset of younger researchers, particularly those from underrepresented groups, will be identified and encouraged to attend and participate in the development of the research road map. Broad dissemination of the results of the workshop will draw a new generation of engineers and scientists to this very interesting and challenging class of technical problems.
