Computational mechanics is the discipline concerned with the use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. Before the emergence of computational science (also called scientific computing) as a "third way" besides theoretical and experimental sciences, computational mechanics was widely considered to be a sub-discipline of applied mechanics. It is now considered to be a sub-discipline within computational science.

This book presents a recent state of the art on the foundations and applications of the meshless natural element method in computational mechanics, including structural mechanics and material forming processes involving solids and Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids.

Francisco Chinesta, born in 1966 in Valencia (Spain), obtained his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (1990) and later his Ph.D. degree supervised at the ENS Cachan in France. He is currently Professor of Computational Mechanics at the Ecole Centrale of Nantes (France) and titular of the EADS Corporate Foundation International Chair on Advanced Modeling of Composites Manufacturing Processes.