This minisymposium is focused on computational methods for solids and structures subjected to severe loads, such as high-speed impact, explosive detonation and blast. Its purpose is to provide a forum for technical presentation and exchange, and to establish communication and collaboration between academic, government and industrial researchers who use computational mechanics for simulations involving these loads. A broad area of contributions is sought, to include numerical modeling of both the severe loads and the subsequent dynamic responses, which may include the coupling of multiple areas of computational mechanics. Typical contributions to this forum come from defense, construction, petroleum, mining, space, counterterrorism or law-enforcement applications. The nature of these applications typically involves some of the most challenging aspects in structural mechanics: nonlinear material behavior under large strains and/or high strain rates; failure and dynamic fracture; initiation, burning, and detonation of energetic materials; phase change and transition; and high-velocity contact and friction. Presentations concerning theoretical developments, multi-spectral physics coupling, new higher-order and isogeometric element technologies, meshfree modeling, algorithms and numerical methods, implementation and parallel computational issues, exploitation of GPU programming, new constitutive modeling, experimental validation, and practical applications are all welcome.