Mechanics of quasi-brittle materials and structures - A volume in honour of Prof. Zdenek P. Bazant 60th birthday, [papers presented at the Workshop on mechanics of quasi-brittle materials and structures, Czech technical university, Prague, 27-28 March, 1998

Understanding the time-dependent response and the failure of Quasi-Brittle Materials and Structures is of paramount importance in many engineering fields. Over the last decades this topic has been among the most active in the context of civil engineering applications. It attracted many scientists because of the challenging combination of problems of tremendous mathematical complexity involving stability, damage, strain localisation and size effect, the acute need for the development of modern experimental techniques in order to provide an insight on the degradation processes in materials, and finally the necessity of providing sound and robust numerical methods for predicting the response of structural components. Among the important achievements are the development of continuum based models for failure which are enriched with micro-structural information, the development of new testing methods for characterising fracture processes including the inherent size effect and the advent of modem software for the analysis of failure, time dependent phenomena spanning from creep and shrinkage to impact and perforation problems. Looking ahead in the future, one among the most challenging issues is certainly to develop models capable of tracing the entire life time of constructions and structures. In Europe at least, these problems are becoming more and more of concern because the number of constructions has steadily decreased while existing structures arrive at the end of their design life or experience unexpected degradations. It raises a large number of conceptual problems involving interactions with the environment, coupled physical / chemical / mechanical / thermal actions, inverse analysis and model control, experimental techniques, data acquisition processes, data interpretation and model adaptation. Edited in honour of Professor Zdenek P. Bazant 60th birthday, this volume presents a state of the art in the field of the Mechanics of Quasi-Brittle Materials and Structures. It is also intended to investigate the potentialities and outstanding issues which should be faced toward the development of models aimed at and predicting the life time of existing structures.