RILEM/ESIS International Symposium—Fracture Processes in Brittle Disordered Materials: Concrete, Rock, Ceramics

Conclusion

The conference was a great success. It gave the opportunity for researchers in the field to interact and discuss the recent progress made. It was good to have in the same room specialists from such different areas as materials science, physics, applied mechanics and structural engineering. Of course all these specialists speak their own language, but many overlaps exist, whereas often similar problems are treated in many cases at a different scale only. The hope is expressed that the participants have learned something not only in their own field, but also from the activities of researchers in other neighbouring fields.

The conference points towards several future activities: applications at both the materials and the structural levels should be addressed. At the materials level we can think of the development of new composites with improved properties for specific applications, while at the structural level the theories could be applied for deriving rational code rules. This should be done in close cooperation with organizations such as CEN, CEB and IABSE.