Dear colleague,

We would like to inform you about the First International Conference on Durability, Repair and Maintenance of Structures, which will take place at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) in Porto, Portugal, on the 16th and 17th of March 2023 (web.fe.up.pt/drms2023/). This conference will be chaired by Professor Lucas F. M. da Silva (University of Porto, Portugal) and co-chaired by Professor Kenneth Reifsnider (University of Texas at Arlington, USA), Professor António Torres Marques (University of Porto, Portugal) and Professor Masayuki Nakada (Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan).

The focus of this conference is the study of the durability, repair and maintenance processes of engineering structures. Novel research works carried out in various topics within these wider themes will be accepted.

Among the topics covered are:

• corrosion processes and corrosion protection;
• creep failure processes;
• damage and degradation under service loadings;
• diagnostics and prognostics algorithms;
• durability and failure of additively manufactured structures;
• durability in civil engineering applications;
• durability in aerospace applications;
• durability of composite, concretes and metals;
• failure and reliability analysis;
• fatigue testing and characterization;
• hygroscopic behaviour of materials;
• intelligent fault detection;
• long term performance of marine structures;
• maintenance methodologies;
• methodologies for fatigue design;
• repair of composite materials and structures;
• risk assessment and failure detection;
• smart maintenance tools;
• structural health monitoring;
• structural joint durability;
• vibrations and signal processes.

DURACOSYS/DRMS history

DURACOSYS Conference has been created by Professors Albert Cardon (Free University of Brussels, Belgium), Ken Reifsneider (USA) and Hiroshi Fukuda (Tokyo University of Science, Japan). After the meeting on Durability Analysis of Polymer Based Composite Systems (August 1990, Brussels, Belgium) and the Invited International Informal Seminar on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems (July 1993, Porto, Portugal), the following International Conferences took place:

• Progress in Durability Analysis of Composite Systems - Duracosys 95, 16th – 21st July 1995 – Brussels, Belgium;
• Duracosys 97, September 1997 – Virginia Tech, USA, 14th – 17th September 1997;
• International Conference on Recent Developments in Durability Analysis of Composite Systems, 11th – 14th July 1999 – Brussels, Belgium;
• 5th International Conference on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems - Duracosys 2001, Tokyo Science University, Japan, November 6-9, 2001;
• 6th International Conference on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems (Duracosys 2004), in Riga-Latvia, May 12-15, 2004;
• 7th International Conference on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems - Duracosys 2006, Virginia Tech, USA, 10th – 13th September 2006.

DURACOSYS 2008 - 8th International Conference on Durability of Composite Systems, held at Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Portugal, July 16th – 18th 2008, took place after the death of Prof. Albert Cardon, and paid a Tribute to him during the Conference. In fact, besides being a co-founder of these Conferences, Prof. Cardon has devoted his life to Durability of Composite Systems and, above all, became an exemplary professor.

Then, the following sequence occurred:

• 9th International Conference on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems - Duracosys 2010, Patras, Greece, 12th – 15th September 2010;
• 10th International Conference on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems - Duracosys 2012, Brussels, Belgium, 17th – 19th September 2012;
• 11th International Conference on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems - Duracosys 2014, Tokyo University of Sciene, Japan, 15th – 17th September 2014;
• 12th International Conference on Durability Analysis of Composite Systems - Duracosys 2016, University of Texas AT Arlington, USA, 12th – 15th June 2016.

Some time has passed and it was felt a need to enlarge the scope of the conference although keeping the focus on durability, but including repair and maintenance processes of engineering structures – DRMS 2023 - Durability, Repair and Maintenance of Structures.

Registration

The registration for the conference can be made on the following link. Each participant, including the authors, must pay the respective registration fee.

Early bird (Until November 11, 2022)
Regular delegate - 600 EUR
Student (MSc or PhD) - 500 EUR

Standard (From November 11, 2022)
Regular delegate - 700 EUR
Student (MSc or PhD) - 600 EUR
Online participation - 700 EUR

The conference registration includes the book of abstracts, lunches, coffee-breaks, conference dinner and reception at the end of the first day. Payment can be made by bank transfer or by credit card.

In case of cancellation, written notification should be sent to the chairs of the conference. If received before January 16, 2023, the registration fees will be refunded with a deduction of 75 €. Refund will not be possible for cancellations after January 16, 2023.

Publications

Delegates will receive the book of abstracts published in PDF version by email at the beginning of the conference. Papers presented at the conference may be published in special issues of Advances in Structural Engineering,, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part L, U. Porto Journal of Engineering and in the book series Proceedings of Engineering Mechanics: Research, Technology and Education, provided they meet the necessary standards.

Full articles (not mandatory) should be sent to the organising committee via email to drms2023@fe.up.pt until March 16, 2023.

Important Dates

Abstract submission deadline - October 14, 2022
Notification of acceptance to authors - October 28, 2022
Early bird registration deadline - November 11, 2022
Full article submission deadline (not mandatory) - March 16, 2023

Yours sincerely,

Lucas, Kenneth, António and Masayuki