The application of composite materials to engineering components has spurred a ma jor effort to analyze such materials and the structures made from them. Most researchers workin~ in mechanics of composite structures understand that composite materials pro vide umque advantages but also present complex and challenging problems to researchers. The complex inelastic behavior and variety of failure modes of composite structures are a result of the strength and stiffness properties of constituents and their complex interac tions. Macromechanical constitutive models based on gross composite properties cannot realistically represent local interactions, and thus have serious limitations. The composite materials that are of most interest to engineering applications are often "brittle" in their behavior, in the sense that the strength and life of the material systems is controlled or greatly influenced by events or processes which involve volumes of material whose dimen sions are small compared to the global dimensions of the element. This is also true in ductile systems where local nonlinearity may contribute to local behavior which controls global response.

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The Symposium is aimed at bringing accomplished active rese-archers together to exchange ideas and set directions forresearch in composite materials and structures. The Symposi-um addresses the postulation and formulation of mechanicsconcepts (e.g. interface mechanics, failure micromechanics,microscale effects, etc.) and related analytical approacheswhich are uniquely suited to the description of local beha-viour. The central theme of the symposium was the asso-ciation ofspecific analysis techniques with specific physi-cal situations.

Inhalt
Axisymmetric Micromechanical Stress Fields in Composites.- Analytical Modeling of Micromechanical Stress Variations in Continuous Fiber-Reinforced Composites.- Some Aspects of Continuum Damage Mechanics Applied to Polymer and Ceramic Matrix Composites.- Micromechanics as a Basis for Damage Mechanics.- Micromechanics for Performance Simulation.- On Statistical Micromechanical Theories for Brittle Solids with Interacting Microcracks.- Fibre Composites: Mesomechanics and Mesostructures.- Matrix Cracking and Interphase Failure in Fiber Composites.- An Experimental Element Technique for Transverse Fracture in CFRP and GFRP.- Interaction of Fatigue Mechanisms During Crack Growth in Arall.- Deformation of a Metal-Ceramic Composite with a Crystal Matrix: Reinforcement Distribution Effects.- An Energy Based Model for the Influence of the Fibre-Matrix Interface Strength on the Interlaminar Fracture Toughness of UD-Composite Laminates.- Analysis of Local Buckling in Viscoelastic Composites.- Analytical Models of Stress Transfer in Unidirectional Composites and Cross-Ply Laminates, and Their Application to the Prediction of Matrix/Transverse Cracking.- Local Stresses and Thermoelastic Properties of Composite Laminates Containing Micro Cracks.- Analysis of Interlaminar Stresses and Failures Using a Layer-Wise Laminate Theory.- Green's Function Method for Calculation of Stress Fields in Composite Materials.- Spline Function Aided Analysis of Inhomogeneous Materials and Structures.- Symbolic Algebra Approach to Composite Materials Analysis.- Scanning Acoustic Microscope Simulation for Determining Interphase Structure.