Introduction to the special issue on the VIII Latin-American Congress on Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

This special issue on Advances in mechanical engineering from Latin-America contains papers that have been presented at COLIM 2014, the VIII Latin-American Congress on Mechanical Engineering held in Cuenca (Ecuador) from November 25 to 27, 2014. The conference has been the eighth event of a series of conferences which started in Merida, Venezuela in1999 as a conference activity mainly for promoting mechanical engineering in South America community. The previous conferences have been held in Quito, Ecuador in 2001, in Lima, Peru in 2003, in Morelia, Mexico in 2005, in Cucuta, Colombia in 2008, in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010, and in Cuzco, Peru in 2012. The congress focuses on today’s technical challenges, research updates, research and development innovations that are shaping the future of mechanical engineering for industrial and non-industrial applications. The congress also has the goal to encourage exchanging experiences and to build up international cooperation networks by inviting researchers, teachers, students and professionals from engineering disciplines in sharing experiences and results. In the latest years, the event has received an increased attention, as it can be seen from the fact that the 2014 congress proceedings contain 128 papers contributions, from all around the world. This special issue has been obtained as a result of a second review process and selection among the best presented papers at COLIM 2014. The content of the papers cover several aspects of mechanical engineering with challenges in the area of interests in Latin-America from theoretical aspects up to practical industrial and non-industrial applications, such as science applied to mechanical engineering, design of machines and components, manufacture of machines, automotive engineering, and methods and techniques for engineering education. We would like to express grateful thanks to the members of the International Scientific Committee for 2014 COLIM conference (listed below), for co-operating enthusiastically for the success of the COLIM event and this special issue: Simon Figueroa (Venezuela), Conference Chair Marco Ceccarelli (Italy), Conference Co-Chair Rene Vinicio Sanchez (Ecuador), Conference Co-Chair Victor Cardenas (Ecuador) Jose Felix Vazquez (Mexico) Jaime Cervantes de Gortari (Mexico) Jose Carlos Miranda (Mexico) Lisa Lugo (Paraguay) Cesar Alejandro Isaza (Colombia)