The Second Sino-US Symposium Workshop on Recent Advancement of Computational Mechanics in Structural Engineering was held between May 25-28, 1998, in Dalian, China. The objectives were: to share the insights and experiences gained from recent developments in theory and practice; to assess the current state of knowledge in various topic areas of mechanics and computational methods and to identify joint research opportunities; to stimulate future cooperative research and to develop joint efforts in subjects of common needs and interests; to build and to strengthen the long-term bilateral...