ABSTRACT
In the real world materials are far from being ideal and the nature and the degree of structural order which they exhibit vary largely depending on their usage conditions. Modeling the long term behavior of such materials is a challenge which requires the development of a multiscale approach, in length as well as in time. The emphasis of materials science has traditionally been on physical aspects of solid state behavior and concepts have been developed to rationalize physical properties of ideal solids. Typically, the most interesting physical phenomena for realistic modeling are out-of-equilibrium processes, the main driving force being the relaxation of constraints originating in the storage of energy in the materials. The chapter provides the opportunity to bring together scientists from different communities contributing to the construction of such a modeling in the particular case of out- of- equilibrium processes, namely physicists, chemists, mathematicians experts in numerical analysis, and computer scientists.
