Author Guide
The contributions to the journal should reflect the holistic approach to the analysis of practical engineering multi-body dynamic problems. Those on design, analysis and experimentation should have a system dynamic approach, highlighting the interactions between various system components. New techniques of analysis are welcome as well as practical applications of problem solving methods to industrial systems and products.
BRIEF GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS
Paper: Describes a piece of complete or substantially complete research, or some aspect of design development, manufacture, operation and maintenance, or engineering education
Review: A critical review of the state-of-the-art with examples of applications in design and profitable manufacture without extensive analysis
Case Study: Describes the application of a technique, procedure or management concept in a real situation
Technical Note: A short, interim statement on a research project or description of some new development
- In general, Technical Papers, Review Papers and Case Studies should not normally exceed 5000 words (with up to 10 illustrations). Longer articles will be considered, however, as our criterion is that the content justifies the length of the article.
- Technical Notes should not exceed 1500 words and 5 illustrations.
- Discussions on papers already published should not exceed 500 words and 2 illustrations.
There are no page charges.
Articles are considered for publication on the understanding that they have not been submitted to any other journal. The work described must be original and not previously published. We are members of CrossCheck, a multi-publisher initiative to screen published and submitted content for originality. We use CrossCheck to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Click here to find out more about CrossCheck.
- The language of the Proceedings is English and the preferred spellings are those of the Oxford English Dictionary.
- Papers should be written in the third person in an objective, formal and impersonal style.
- SI units should be used wherever possible, as recommended in ISO 1000 and BS5555.
- Symbols for physical quantities should be in italic (sloping) type. Mathematical operators and constants (sin, e, d, log, π, ...) and symbols for units (m, kg, s, ...) should be in roman (upright) type. Vectors should be in bold italic type (A) and matrices in bold upright type (A). If this is not possible then they should be indicated by a wavy line. Further details are given in ISO 31 and BS 5775.
- Manuscripts should be keyed, with double spacing throughout (including references), on A4 size pages, leaving ample margins. A list of captions for the illustrations and each table should be keyed separately.
- The preferred order of contents is as follows:
- Title of article.
- Author(s) name(s) and business address.
- Abstract of not more than 200 words: covering the aims of the work, methods used, results obtained and conclusions reached; keywords for information retrieval purposes should be indicated.
- Body of the paper: organized into logical sections, sequentially numbered with no more than two grades of subheadings.
- Acknowledgements.
- References in the order to which they have been referred in the text [1, 2]. For example:
[1] Varahramyan, K. and Lvov, Y. Nanomanufacturing by layer-by-layer assembly – from nanoscale coating to device applications. Proc. IMechE, Part N: J. Nanoengineering and Nanosystems, 2006, 220(N1), 29-37.
[2] Rantatalo, M., Tatar, K., and Norman, P. Laser Doppler vibrometry measurements of a rotating milling machine spindle. In Eighth International Conference on Vibrations in Rotating Machinery, University of Wales, Swansea, 7-9 September 2004, IMechE Event Publications, paper C623/110/2004, pp. 157-168 (Professional Engineering Publishing, London).
- Tables: these should be numbered consecutively throughout the text.
- List of captions for the illustrations which should also be numbered consecutively throughout the text; both line drawings and photographs must be included in the same numbering sequence.
- List of notation as the first appendix, in alphabetical order, defining all the symbols used in the paper (see 4 above).
Illustrations should only be included if they are informative and add to the understanding of the reader.
- Line drawings should be supplied as TIFF files or high-resolution BITMAP or JPEG files for preference. Figures should be supplied separately from the text (they should not be embedded in Word documents), and they should not be submitted as PDF files. Symbols should be used to match those used in the text (see 'Preparation of Manuscripts', above). Please avoid use of shading; use hatching instead for clarity. Multicoloured line drawings should be avoided if possible, as they will be rendered in black and white. Text size and line thickness should be such that they can withstand sensible reduction.
- Photographic illustrations should be clear and sharp, with good contrast. Low resolution scans from printed matter or photocopies are unlikely to give good results and are best considered as unsuitable for reproduction.
- Colour illustrations and colour reproduction are free of charge in our online publications. The use of colour is normally not permitted in the print version of the article.
Articles are considered for publication on the understanding that they have not been submitted to any other publisher. The work described must be original and not previously published. In order to publish your article we need your agreement in writing; please complete the Journal’s Licence to Publish form or submit a draft Licence for negotiation. The Licence to Publish form will be sent to you after you have submitted your work to the Journal. If we do not have the full rights to publish the article, we cannot publish it in the Journal. You will retain copyright on the article.
Authors who wish to reproduce illustrations that have already been published elsewhere must obtain the permission of the copyright holder before submitting their work.
Authors participating in Engineering Open Choice (see below) will be able to disseminate their articles under the Creative Commons licence version 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/).
On request authors are generally permitted to post the final published version in institutional repositories as soon as the article is published. Authors should also deposit the URL of their published article, in addition to the full text.
We have a fully-integrated online submission and peer review system for Journal of Multi-body Dynamics. To submit to the journal, either click on 'Submit' link on this page or go directly to http://jmbd.edmgr.com/.
We would welcome suggestions of at least four appropriate referees. This will assist us in enhancing our referee database and one or more of your suggestions may be asked to review your submission.
Submissions to the journal are assessed by independent referees who make recommendations on the suitability of the articles for publication. We are committed to providing timely assessment of articles and authors are informed of the publication decision as soon as possible.
It should be noted that our refereeing process, common to many other publishers, is single-blind, that is, the referees remain anonymous and their identities are not released to authors. The referees, however, are informed of the authors’ names and affiliations.
This is a service to authors that provides the option of accepted articles being made free online for anyone throughout the world to view. This is also commonly known as ‘open access’. The service is available to all authors of accepted articles upon payment of a standard fee. This fee, which is payable after acceptance of the paper and before publication, is £1,700 (+ VAT in EU countries). Authors will be offered this service upon acceptance of their article.
If an article is accepted for publication, we ask for electronic files to facilitate the production process. PDF files are not appropriate for our production requirements. Many types of software are acceptable, but MS Word is preferred. Separate files should be created for each of: the text, the references, each appendix, each table, and the figure captions. Illustrations should also be submitted as separate files. Do not merge the files into one electronic document. ASCII files should be included if available.
Authors will have access to pdf offprints of their papers. The corresponding author will also receive a hardcopy of the issue in which their work is published. Hardcopy offprints can be ordered at a reasonable cost prior to printing.