The Association was formed in March 1992 to both promote research in computational mechanics within the UK, and to establish formal links with similar organisations in Europe and worldwide. It was initially named ACME (Association of Computational Mechanics in Engineering).
The principal activity of Association involves the organisation of an annual two day conference on computational mechanics, developments and research trends. The purpose of this Conference is to provide a forum for reviewing the computational mechanics activities in any area of computational mechanics – solid and structural mechanics, fluid mechanics, computational fluid dynamics, gas, bioengineering, geomechanics, electromagnetics, multi-physics, mesh generation, etc with a particular emphasis on interdisciplinary aspects to enable cross-fertilization to take place between different disciplines.
An article covering the first 30 years of the Association was written in 2023 and is accessible here.
Below is a photograph from the first conference of the Association in Swansea in March 1993.
Professor Olgierd C Zienkiewicz (18 May 1921 – 2 January 2009) was instrumental in setting up the Association in 1992 and was the association honorary president for the rest of his life. Professor Zienkiewicz was a figure of outstanding worldwide prestige and recognition who made a huge contribution in the area of computational mechanics and in particular finite elements. His long standing leadership from the late 60’s to the late 80’s has inspired many generations by his original ideas and imagination.
Professor Mike Crisfield (26 July 1942 – 19 February 2002) held the FEA chair in computational mechanics in the Aeronautics Department at Imperial College, London. Mike was a leading researcher in computational mechanics and a keen supporter of the Association (Chairman 1997/8). He died in February 2002.
The Association is affiliated to the European organisation ECCOMAS and the international organisation IACM. In 2016 the association changed its name to UKACM (UK Association for Computational Mechanics).