6th International Conference on Composite Materials

Preface

The 6th International Conference on Composite Materials (ICCM-VI) was hosted by the European Association for Composite Materials (EACM) and, in combination with the 2nd European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM-2), was held at Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK, on 20-24 July 1987.

The organisation for the meeting, which was shared between the Centre for Composite Materials at Imperial College and the EACM, based in Bordeaux, France, represents an extremely successful cooperation on a European scale. The support of the ICCM organisation in the USA, and the geographical spread of the large number of technical referees, underlines the truly international nature of the meeting. This was the first time that the ICCM had been held in the UK (previous locations being Geneva, Boston, Toronto, Paris, Tokyo and San Diego); the first ECCM took place in Bordeaux.

The conference organisers received over 400 abstracts from which about 250 contributed papers from 28 countries were accepted. The currently important themes were reviewed in the Scala Lecture and eight other plenary addresses. The continuing strength of UK and European research is reflected, as at ECCM-1, in the content of the scientific programme.

The conference attracted a large number of sponsors and this also emphasises the importance of composite materials on a global scale. Advances in technology are strongly dependent on the development of new materials. ‘Smart’ materials, for example, rely on the integration of information technology and materials technology to produce a product that will give warning of its impending failure; composites are a key element in this technique. The economic use of such materials is consequent on a fundamental understanding of their properties and behaviour and the proceedings of the conference show, without doubt, that the international research and development community is contributing to this understanding at an ever increasing rate.

F.L. Matthews, Conference Chairman
N.C.R. Bunsell, President
R.A. Signorelli, A.K. Dhingra, ICCM Executive Council