-----
Title:
-----

Structural Stability

-----------
Organizers:
-----------

Herbert Mang (Primary Organizer)
Vienna University of Technology
Institute for Mechanics of Materials and Structures
Karlsplatz 13, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Tel: ++43-1-58801-20210
Fax: ++43-1-58801-20299
email: Herbert.Mang@tuwien.ac.at

Yeon-Bin Yang (Co-Organizer)
National Taiwan University
Department of Civil Engineering
Taipei, Taiwan 10617
Tel: (886)-2-3366 4245
Fax: (886)-2-2362 2975
email: ybyang@ntu.edu.tw 

-------------------------
Minisymposium description:
------------------------- 

Diagnosis of loss of stability of structures and of their postbuckling behavior is a 
challenging topic of both fundamental and applied research as well as of engineering 
practice. The complexity of many stability problems in engineering requires the use 
of modern mathematical theories of stability. The advent of the digital computer, 
followed by the development of computational mechanics, has greatly enhanced the 
applicability of such stability theories. This, in turn, has motivated researchers to 
tackle problems which previously were considered to be intractable. One of them is 
design sensitivity analysis of the initial postbuckling behaviour of elastic structures. 
Related to this problem is the convertibility of such structures from imperfection 
sensitivity into insensitivity. These are just two examples of a very wide field 
including loss of stability in the plastic material domain, dynamic instability, 
loss of stability of different types of structural members such as beams, panels, 
shells, etc. 
Two sessions with one keynote lecture and five papers each will permit a structure 
of the Minisymposium containing the most important streams of contemporary research 
in structural stability.