ASME's technical publishing unit published a number of special issues of its journals in the second half of 2009. The complete table of contents and full abstracts for all issues can be found online at the ASME Digital Library: http://www.asmedl.org. All of them may be purchased online at www.asme.org.
JULY 2009
Journal of Biomechanical Engineering
Special Issue on Biotransport
Important applications of bioheat and mass transfer include biopreservation (molecular, cellular, and tissue) and thermal therapies (high temperature—laser, radio frequency, microwave, high intensity ultrasound heating of cells and tissues; and low temperature— cryosurgery). These applications in turn support the growing fields of tissue engineering, cell therapeutics, drug stability and delivery, and minimally and non-invasive disease detection and treatment. The frontiers of biopreservation and thermal therapies are increasingly defined at the cellular and molecular level. This special issue focuses on these frontiers in areas of emphasis including thermodynamics (molecular and cellular stability), multi-scale mass transport (sub-cellular to tissue level transport), multi-scale heat transport (nanoparticle to bulk tissue heating), and extreme biology (anhydro and thermal physiology). The papers assembled in this special issue show the breadth of this activity with a series of invited reviews and original contributions in the area.
SEPTEMBER 2009
Journal of Applied Mechanics
Special issue on Advances in Impact Engineering
Computational tools are indispensable to augment experimental techniques for the analysis of complex structures under dynamic loading. Many new computational techniques are currently being developed, and new applications in the fields of impact and shock loadings are emerging. The special issue attempts to provide a glimpse into the wide range of engineering problems in the field of Impact Engineering that mainly can be dealt with by employing computational techniques.
Journal of Mechanical Design
Special Issue on the Design of Smart Structures and Systems
Design of artifacts is following a natural evolution from being purely static to being "smart," namely, fully adaptive to a changing operating environment. Although control design is an important element in smart product design, a controller can only perform as well as the design of the artifact—its configuration, structure, and materials—will allow. This special issue highlights exciting new research work addressing such design interests for product innovation.
OCTOBER 2009
Journal of Biomechanical Engineering
Special Issue on Growth and Remodeling
The special issue grew out of a symposium on the "Mechanics of Growth and Remodeling in Native and Engineered Tissues," which took place at the 2008 Summer Bioengineering Conference in Marco Island, Fla. The underlying impetus for this symposium was that tissue engineers have faced challenges in repairing or replacing tissues that serve a predominantly biomechanical function. An evolving discipline called "functional tissue engineering" seeks to address these challenges. The focus of this issue is to explore how state-of-the-art work in the mechanics of growth and remodeling in native tissues can be applied to the development of engineered tissues. Topics in this special issue include the latest theoretical concepts and experimental applications to explore how these concepts can be applied to native and engineered tissue development.
Journals Engineering Materials and Technology
Predictive Science and Technology in Mechanics and Materials
The papers represented in this special issue were birthed from a workshop entitled "Predictive Science and Technology in Mechanics and Materials" hosted by the Center of Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) on the campus of Mississippi State University in June 2008. The workshop was focused on technologies that could drive engineering research such that predictive tools could be realized. Several software companies and corporations that employed state- of-the-art finite element analysis to solve structural problems were present. Presenters who submitted review articles included more references than usual for a more thorough review on the topic.
Journal of Heat Transfer
Special Issue on Recent Advances in Porous Media Transport
This special issue focuses on the recent advances in porous media transport as related to applications in industry and biology. Transport phenomena through porous media have been the subject of various studies due to the wide range of applicability of these research areas in contemporary technology, for example, in biology, heat piping, electronics cooling, thermal insulation engineering, environmental engineering, underground spreading of chemical waste, nuclear waste repository, grain storage, and enhanced recovery of petroleum. This interest is further driven by practical applications that can be modeled as transport through porous media such as packed bed heat exchangers, drying technology, catalytic reactors, tissue engineering, drug delivery, and advanced medical imaging as related to brain stroke.
NOVEMBER 2009
Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control
Dynamic Modeling, Control, and Manipulation at the Nanoscale
Most of today's emerging nanotechnological applications such as nanoelectromechanical systems require comprehensive modeling, control, and manipulation of objects, components, and subsystems ranging in sizes from a few nanometers to micrometers. An important task among many challenging aspects of"nanoscale"manipulation and control design is to overcome the added complexity of uncertainties and nonlinearities that are unique to nanoscale. This added complexity combined with the sub-nanometer precision requirement calls for development of fundamentally new techniques and controllers for these applications. In an effort to respond to such demanding needs for new directions in modeling and control at the nanoscale, this special issue attempts to bring together the current advances in this area and target current research and development efforts in nanoscale control and manipulation techniques including scanning probe microscopy systems as well as nanorobotic manipulation.
Journal of Solar Energy
Special Issue on Thermal Energy Storage
Today, available heat-storage technologies suffer from insufficient energy densities, limited efficiency and reliability, and investment costs, which are still too high. Such shortfalls are obstacles to a more widespread use and market penetration. To close this gap, research and development efforts worldwide are focusing on material engineering issues as well as design and system integration. This special issue contains papers from 11 countries with two-thirds of the contributions discussing storage applications for heating and cooling, which indicates that this area is a real hot spot for current R&D activities. Other papers cover the use of multi-functional fluids for absorbing solar radiation.
DECEMBER 2009
Journal of Heat Transfer
Special Issue on Molecular-to-Large-Scale Heat Transfer With Multiphase Interfaces
Heat and mass transfer across multiphase interfaces, or liquid-vapor/gas-solid phase boundaries, represent the most fundamental transport phenomena in diverse applications, which include boiling, two-phase flow, and spray and coating processes, to name a few. The collection of research papers in this special issue, which is indeed timely in the current "energy crisis" debate, articulates the current efforts in characterizing the interfacial behavior and advancing the associated basic science as well as applied understanding. The reported work addresses long-standing unresolved issues in ebullient phase-change, capillary-forces driven convection, drop evaporation and thin-film cooling, and newer developments that are primarily driven by reductions of spatial scales.
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