Publications

The aim of this pocket guide is to bring together all relevant information about COST into an “easy to use” publication. This guide includes information on the COST framework and goals, the Open Call for proposals, the running Actions, the networking tools and the COST National Coordinators (CNCs). The Actions are presented from the most recent ones to those ending this year. In order to highlight COST’s interdisciplinary dimension, Trans-Domain Actions are presented in a separate sub-chapter. Complementary Action information can be found on the COST website (www.cost.eu).

The awareness of the significance of the robustness of structures has gradually intensified over the years due to experiences with failure and collapse of many structures. Recent events of terrorism in different parts of the world have further emphasized the urgent need for development of rational approaches to ensure that risks to people, environment, assets and functionality of the societal infrastructure and built environment are acceptable and affordable to society. A significant amount of research has hence been invested into the various aspects of robustness resulting in a number of useful recommendations on how to achieve robust structures.

However, despite many significant theoretical, methodical and technological advances over the recent years, structural robustness is still an issue of controversy and poses difficulties with regard to its interpretation as well as regulation. Modern structural design codes consider robustness through requirements which typically state that the consequence of damages to structures should not be disproportional to the causes of the damages. Despite the importance of robustness for structural design, such requirements are, however, still not substantiated in further detail; nor has the engineering profession been able to agree on an interpretation of robustness which facilitates its quantification. Hence it has become necessary to develop an elaborate framework for the assessment and quantification of structural robustness, establish acceptable criteria for robustness and hence provide for a seamless incorporation of robustness considerations into structural design procedures.

These proceedings have been prepared from presentations during the second midterm Workshop of COST-722 that was held in Langen, Germany, on 20 October 2005.