What is the International Association of Fracture Mechanics for Concrete and Concrete Structures (IA-FraMCoS)

There are many conferences discussing damage, cracking and fracture of concrete, but mostly outside the context of fracture mechanics. There are many others dealing with fracture mechanics, but rarely with its application to concrete. To fill this gap was he motivation for founding FraMCoS.

Concrete is an archetypical quasibrittle material. It consists of brittle constituents and is characterized by a non-negligible material characteristic length which endows the material with a behavior that is transitional between the stress-strain relations for distributed damage at small scales and linear elastic fracture mechanics at large scales. This transitional behavior poses difficult challenges for theoretical, experimental and computational research.

Originally, IA-FraMCoS only activity was the triennial conference series with focus on concrete. Presently, it seeks to expand its activities to cover not only fundamental developments in concrete but also promotion of fracture-based approaches in engineering practice. Such an approach is long overdue in infrastructure life-cycle assessment (durability), environmental protection (long term waste storage, carbon dioxide sequestration), energy (nuclear vessels, fracking) and engineered design of new materials.

This will be accomplished not only through the perennial conferences, but also through seminar series, short courses (primarily to industry), and endorsements of high quality scientific research.

News

2023-September

Framcos-XI

FraMCoS-XI, 10-14 September, Bangalore, India, 2023: Webpage available at http://framcos11.iisc.ac.in/ . Proceedings available here.

2018-September

Framcos-X

Framcos-X, 24-26 June, Bayonne, France, 2019: Webpage available at http://framcos-x.sciencesconf.org

2016-October

Professor Bićanić Passed Away

Prof. Bićanić passed away on Saturday October 8. Nenad Bicanic was a fine scientist and a dear friend with whom many of us interacted and enjoyed his warm friendliness. The FraMCoS community expresses its deepest condolences to his family.

2016-September

Access to Two major projects data bases

Courtesy of Prof. Mazars, you are given access to two major data bases related to unique large scale testing programs in France. Framocs friends are encourage to further enrich this database for the benefit of all.

2016-September

Framcos-9 Financial Statement

Framcos 9999 has reimbursed its loan from IA-Framcos, and has remitted to our "mother associaiton" an additional check of $18,659. Regretfully, our account was compromised and a fraudulent charge of $2,535 was incurred. Full financial statement can be found here.

2016-May

New FraMCoS Fellows

Prof. John Bolander, Eric Landis, and Chandra Kishen were voted FraMCoS fellows.

Prof. Bolander and Landis were recognized for their excellent organization of FraMCoS-9 and Prof. Kishen for his extensive participation in many FraMCoS conferences along with a large contingent of students.

2016-May

New Boad Members

New board members were voted during FraMCoS-9 conference: Profs. GianLuca Cusatis, Marco Di Prisco, Eric Landis, and Erik Schlangen.

2016-May

Saouma Steps down

Though he should have served another three years as Past-President, Prof. Saouma has decided to step down from the Board in order to: a) better focus on other research activities; and b) make room for a younger generation of researcher to shape the association.

2016-May

New ByLaws Approved

New set of Bylaws were voted by the General Assembly in Berkeley.

2016-May

FraMCoS-9

Succesfully held in Berkeley: 314 abstracts submitted, 205 conference presentations, 178 papers published, conference web site

2016-March

Past FraMCoS president, resigns.

Past FraMCoS president, Jan van Mier "resigns".

2016-04-29

Board Member Candidates

A sollicitation for Boad Members candidates was issued on 2016-03-30.

The BoD received 9 nominations, and in accordance with the Association ByLaws, six were retained, and Association members will soon be asked to vote electronically.

A total of four will be selected to serve with President Elect Gilles Pijaudier-Cabot.

Results will be announced at the General Assembly.

2016-04-29

Proposed New Bylaws

Our Bylaws were first written in 1995, and subsequently evised in 2010.

With the accumulated expereince since then, it became obvious that they would have to be revised. After many (and at time spirited :- ) exchanges among the Board of Director and some members of the Board of Advisors, this 2016-Bylaws was voted by the BoD.

At the end of the document, a table summarizes the reason for each of the major modification.

Per our current (2010) Bylaws, The By-Laws of the Association and any amendments shall be agreed by not less than two-thirds of the number of members present at a General Meeting.

Hence, ths document is made available to our community for examination prior to the vote.

It should be noted that Board members are elected by the association members (whether preseent at the conference or not), whereas Bylaws amendmanets are to be voted by those present at the General Assembly.

2016-04-29

Saouma Steps Down

Per the current (and proposed new) Bylaws, the current President serves another term as Past President.

Victor Saouma (current President) has decided to step down after the 2016 framcos and thus facilitating the selection of one additional board member who could hopefully revitalize our organization with "fresh blood" (and enable him to pursue other adventures.)

2016-03-30

Conference Preparation

Framcos-9 preparations is going well. Indications are that we will have about 150-180 participants. Many (but not all ☹) have registered and paid. Reviews of final papers is nearly complete, and all authors should hear from us very soon. Any question: please contact secretariat at framcos9.org

2016-03-30

Nominations to the Board of Directors

Members have been invited to nominate candidates (including themselves) to the ia- framcos Board of Directors. At least two positions will become vacant right after framcos 9.

Kindly email a one single page pdf (xxx.pdf, xxx being the nominee) with two sections: Brief bio, and your Vision Statement for framcos.

File should be sent to

Victor Saouma, framcos President
saouma [at] colorado [dot] edu
and
Gonzalo Ruiz, framcos Secretary
gonzalo [dot] ruiz [at] uclm [dot] es So far, four nominations have been received.

2015-10-8

Z.P. Bažant Workshop

Professor Zdeněk Bažant has been at the leading edge of concrete mechanics for nearly 50 years, and was the founding president of IA -FraMCoS.

A Pre-conference workshop honoring him will be organized and hosted by Gianluca Cusatis and Giles Pijaudier-Cabot on Sunday May 29, 2016.

Presntations are by invitation, participation is open to all.

2015-10-8

framcos-9

Final announcement, Deadline extended to Oct 15, 2015. So far 230 Abstracts submitted; More details in http://framcos9.org.

13 Mimi Symposiums to chose from:

1. Multiscale modeling of brittle damage processes.
2. Modelling time-dependent behavior and deterioration of concrete.
3. Micro- and nano-scale testing of concrete/rock/cementitious materials.
4. Nonlocal model for the simulation of fracture in concrete.
5. Advances in computational failure modeling of advanced cement-based material and reinforced concrete in various length scales.
6. Fracture and damage of confined concrete.
7. Cracking and fracture behavior of high-performance fiber-reinforced cement-based composites.
8. Fracture mechanics and earthquake engineering.
9. Fracture and self-healing.
10. Sustainable repair strategies.
11. Dynamic fracture of concrete: validation of numerical models.
12. Probabilistic aspects of concrete fracture.
13. Non-destructive testing and monitoring of fractures.

Berkeley May 29, June 1. 2016.

2015-03-27

High-Performance Fibre-Reinforced Cement-Based Composites (HPFRCC) For Future Infrastructure

This FraMCoS sponsored event will take place 26-31 July 2015, Dresden, Germany.

2015-02-06

New Bylaws

A number of idiosyncrasies in the association Bylaws arose during the Toledo meeting, and there was different readings about certain important issues. As such, the President Elect (now President) of FraMCoS (V. Saouma) proposed to rewrite our ByLaws first written in 1995, and then slightly amended in 2010 to better address some propblems which arose in their interpretation and application.

Saouma submitted draft of the Bylaws (98 lines) to the Boards of Directors and Advisors on Oct. 14. Discussion was supposed to take place by Dec. 1 at which time they will be voted upon.

After much (email based) discussion (full report available upon request), the Board of Directors has voted the new Bylaws. In accordance with the current ByLaws, these should be voted by the Members/General Assembly.

2014-11-19

framcos-9

First announcement, pen your calendar, framcos9 will be held in Berkeley May 29 June 1, 2016.

2013-11-02

President Elect

Prof. Giles Pijaudier-Cabot has been voted by framcos members President Elect, will assume the presidency of our association in 2016, and will organize framcos-10 in Framce in 2019.

2013-10-15

President Elect Election

On Oct. 15, invitation was sent to all 260 members to vote for the President Elect. Regretfully, the file was corrupted and the hyperlinks to the two candidates pointed to the same pdf file (pertaining to one of them). Fortunately, the error was immediately detected, and electronic vote cancelled. My apologies for this unfortunate mishaps.

A ballot will be sent again on Oct. 16 without hyperlinks. All members have already been notified by e-mail that the two candidates are:

• Prof. Gilles Pijaudier-Cabot (France)
• Prof. Chandra Kishen (India)

For the record:

• Voting is through the software Qualtrics
• For maximum transparency, access to the web site has been given to all Board of Directors members. Qualtrics prevents anyone from altering vote.
• Each framcos member will receive an individualized e-mail which will enable her/him to cast one single vote.
• The same ballot would allow you to send comments to the Board of Directors.
• Names are not recorded, however IP addresses are. Hence, you are strongly recommended to check the IP address of the computer through which you cast you vote should there be a future audit.
• You should vote by Friday Nov. 1 2013 midnight (PDT).
• Results will be immediately announced subsequently.

2013-09-02

Outstanding Invitation to Membership

The Board has agreed in Toledo that all participant in framcos 6, 7 and 8 are eligible for free membership. Invitation was sent to all these participants, about 250 responded, and about 200 have not. This file lists all past participants who are eligible and who have not yet responded. If your name is on the list, and would like to become a member of framocs, kindly send an e-mail to saouma at colorado.edu

2013-08-26

FramCoS-1 Proceedigs

FramCoS-1 proceedings have been uploaded as a single file. Volunteers are sought to break it down into individual papers.

2013-07-30

Candidacies for next President and IA-FraMCoS-10 Organization

3 candidacies were received for the Presidency of IA-FraMCoS and the organization of FraMCoS-10. They are being reviewed by the Board of Directors with the advise of the Board of Advisors. Selection of those to be retained in the final ballot should be completed by Sept. 16.

2013-05-18

Data Repository

Data Repository is now open. Prof. Kishen (Indian Institute of Science Bangalore), and Prof. Ragueneau (Laboratoire de mecanique et technologie, Cachan) volunttered to spearhead this task. Please contact them directly to upload your data.

2013-05-18

Solicitation for President-Elect

Sollicitation for President Elect,and FraMCoS-10 organizer.

2013-05-18

Letter to Members

This letter was sent to all IA-FraMCoS members.

2013-05-04

Minutes Posted

Minutes of the general assembly and Board of Directors/Advisors meetings have been posted.

2013-04-25

Proceedings indexed; Search Engine activated

Our web site is being continuously upgraded, a Google Custom Search Engine was inserted and activated, and all 869 papers form the following proceedings are now available for the research community.

• FraMCoS-8 224 papers
• FraMCoS-7 276 papers
• FraMCoS-6 229 papers
• FraMCoS-5 140 papers

Proceedings of FraMCoS 1, 2 and 3 are on their way (will take a while as we have to scan them first).

2013-04-22

Invitations sent to become a member

• User group framcos formed, this was the only fasible way to: a) establish a large mailing list; and b) eventually provide a forum for discussio amongst us
• Invitations were sent to each participant of FraMCoS 8, 7 and 6 to join the Google group "framcos" and thus become de facto a member. A total of about 970 invitations (many duplicate) were sent.
• Google gives you only a week to respond. As of May 4, we have 200 members, there is a number of outstanding invites.
• Individuals who would like to become members of framcos should contact the president.
• List of official members will be published shortly.

2013-04-21

FraMCoS-9 Location

Your FraMCoS-9 Conference organizers were sighted scouting for a location for the forthcoming conference location.

2013-04-21

FraMCoS-8 Closed

• FraMCoS 8 had its general assembly, afterwhicih Dr. Jan van Mier "passed the hammer" to Prof. Victor Saouma
• The four members of the Board of Directors and the Board of Advisors had an informal meeting during lunch to acqauint themselves.