PROCEEDINGS of the 9th INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR on Environmentally Compatible Structures held at MILANO

Within 2000 – 2007, the IASS WG 18 on ECS organized in Prague six international seminars on environmentally compatible structures and structural materials (ECS). Considering the growing environmental pollution, atmosphere temperature and climate changes, depletion of reserves, etc., theory, practice and scientific research on environmentally compatible structures and structural materials has become, increasingly, important and urgent in the field of architecture and civil engineering. Since 2004, the IASS WG 18 periodical international Prague seminars on ECS are organized once in two years. They provide a virtual and needed platform for young researchers, Ph.D. students, university staff members, designers and civil engineers in general, who are interested in focusing their Ph.D. thesis, research, scientific and design problems in Civil Engineering and Architecture on environmental problems. The main objective of the 9th Como WG 18 Seminar 2011, which took place in the International Congress SEWC, has been to enable members and non-members of the IASS WG18 on ECS, i.e. Ph.D. students, university staff members and engineers, etc. dealing with ECS related topics in civil engineering and architecture, to publish their research, theoretical or experimental results and studies in the seminar Proceedings, postponed than the SEWC2011 Proceedings. The following thematic fields were included in the 9th International Seminar call for proposal: TF1: Contribution of civil and structural engineering and architecture to environmental pollution and the necessary eco-compatibility of the structures; TF2: Theory of ECS, design characteristics, simulation and optimization methods in the design and construction process of ECS; TF3: EC structures and structural systems and EC forms, low energy or passive energy building manufactures (structures, bridges, hydraulic structures, roads and railways, geotechnical structures, etc.); TF4: EC technologies and environmental effect of production, construction, maintenance, repair, reconstruction, recycling, demolition; TF5: ECS materials: environmental data, embodied energy, gases’ and substances’ emission, recycling potential. TF6: ECS experimental testing and assessment of their life-cycle; TF7: Case studies and best available practices on ECS in Europe and overseas.