This book contains papers presented at the IUTAM/IACM Symposium Discretization Methods in Structural Mechanics II' held in Vienna, Austria, in June 1997. During the last decade the broad field of Discretization Methods in Structural Mechanics' has experienced a remarkable evolution. New aspects have come into focus. Many of them were stimulated by challenging requirements coming from high-tech applications. In these proceedings such recent developments are presented and discussed together with new trends and demands. In view of their relevance, emphasis was put on nonlinear finite element methods and boundary element methods as well as on the coupling of these two numerical methods. Novel developments in other discretization methods having the potential of opening new avenues for promising applications were also considered. The different sources of nonlinearities, such as large deformations, large strains, nonlinear material behaviour (including viscoplasticity, progressive damage, nonlinearities in composites and other microstructured materials), contact with or without friction, etc., require (a) a careful mathematical and mechanical description and modelling, (b) the development of efficient algorithms and (c) a sound computational treatment. Contributions meeting these requirements are presented. Further emphasis was laid on significant improvements concerning efficiency, accuracy and reliability of discretization methods in nonlinear structural mechanics (e.g. error estimation, self-adapting mesh refinement, multigrid methods). A number of papers deal with new aspects of sensitivity analysis and optimization. Neural network strategies as well as modern data processing architectures(such as parallel computers and transputers) and their impact on the developments of new algorithmic concepts are discussed.