Presidential candidate profile for Gilles Pijaudier-Cabot, FraMCoS-10 elections.
LABORATOIRE DES FLUIDES COMPLEXES ET LEURS RESERVOIRS UMR 5150, UPPA / TOTAL / CNRS ALLEE DU PARC MONTAURY 64600 ANGLET, FRANCE GILLES PIJAUDIER-CABOT, DIRECTEUR IA – FraMCoS - Vision Prof. Gilles PIJAUDIER-CABOT Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, France Back in 1991, IA-FraMCoS was established in order to promote a series of international conferences specifically dedicated to the Fracture of Concrete and Concrete Structures. The intent was to organise the community around a landmark event held on a regular basis. One major aim of IA-FraMCoS was, and still is, to promote fracture-based approaches in engineering practice strongly backed by fundamental developments. Such an engineering practice covers construction at large (long term assessment, safety analyses,…), but also others fields such as environmental protection or energy related issues. Some of these fields were at the forefront of scientific advances at the time the international association was established (such as computational failure analyses or experimental measurement of fracture energy). New topics emerged such as time-dependent fracture, dynamic fracture, durability mechanics. Recently, energy related challenges involved with Oil and Gas Production became very hot topics in relationship with Gas Shale production, Enhanced Coal Bed Methane production, deep geothermal energy or Carbon Dioxide Sequestration. This renewal and diversity of engineering problems to be solved are, no doubt, a sign of vitality, timeliness and importance of IA-FraMCoS. At the same time engineering probems became more diverse and new scientific methods emerged: multiscale – multi-physics approaches toward fracture expanded, new experimental techniques were implemented, including full field measurements, non intrusive imaging techniques (X Ray, NMR, Radar, …), or large scale experimental facilities. Discrete approaches of fracture, based on lattice modelling and quite often inspired by physical approaches of fracture became also popular.