Editorial to special issue of Computers & Structures

This special issue includes twenty-three extended, reviewed and revised papers originally presented at the Eleventh International Conference on Computational Structures Technology (CST2012) and the Eighth International Conference on Engineering Computational Technology (ECT2012) held concurrently in Dubrovnik, Croatia, 4–7 September 2012. The CST2012 Young Researcher Best Paper Prize was presented to Dr J.-W. Simon, of the RWTH Aachen University, Germany, for his paper “Limit States of Structures in n-dimensional Loading Spaces with Limited Kinematical Hardening”. The ECT2012 Young Researcher Best Paper Prize was presented to Dr L. Barbie, of CEA-Cadarache, France, for the paper “An Automatic Multilevel Refinement Technique based on Nested Local Meshes for Nonlinear Mechanics” by L. Barbie, I. Ramiere and F. Lebon. The CST2012 Prize Paper is the first paper included in this special issue; while the ECT2012 Prize paper is the second paper included in this issue. The standard of the papers considered for these prizes was very high and the conference editors wish to thank the members of the conference editorial board for their work in considering all the applicants