International Workshop on Civil Engineering Infrastructure Systems

After more than seventeen years of civil war, Lebanon embarked in the mid 1990s on a new era of reconstruction and rehabilitation. In its drive towards re-normalization it has earmarked a spending level of over $12 billion for reconstruction, upgrading, and renovation of almost every aspect of its infrastructure systems: building structures, bridges, transportation systems, sewer and water supply lines, electrical power plants, communication lines, sea-ports and tourist facilities. The Workshop is organized on the premise that the exchange of existing American and foreign experience in the area of civil engineering infrastructure system is beneficial for both parties. The workshop will focus on the high performance materials, monitoring, and management. The development of high performance materials can perhaps be considered one of the most significant developments in construction materials of the past twenty five years. The proposed location of the workshop is intended to serve as a live laboratory for the discussions in a country where various construction, repair and rehabilitation schemes have been and are being currently applied on a large scale. On the technical side, the goals are to present and discuss latest ideas and development, practical solutions, identify needs and gaps in existing knowledge, and suggest directions to follow. Issues planned for discussion deal with structural systems, with emphasis on buildings and bridges, and include: 1) High performance materials: Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, high performance concrete, high strength steel, etc.; 2) Monitoring, diagnosis and assessment; and 3) Management of Civil Engineering infrastructure systems. In order to ensure a productive workshop, the expected participation will be about 90 specialists from universities, research centers, bridge and building authorities and consulting companies from around the world. Participants will submit written contributions on the aforementioned topics. The discussions, additional contributions and final recommendations will be included in the Workshop Proceedings. The Proceedings will be posted on the workshop web site and will be widely distributed in the US to researchers and engineers. The presentations will also be made available at various professional meetings and conferences (ASCE, ACI, TRB, etc.) as well as in professional journals. The Workshop is scheduled for two days starting on the morning of Monday, June 6, and ending on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 6, 2005, at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Beirut is the capital of Lebanon and is "the window of the west to the east". Intellectual Merit: The proposed workshop provides an international forum to address practical ideas, to identify research needs and gaps, and to make recommendations to ongoing efforts in reconstruction, repair. rehabilitation, and renovation. Broader Impacts: The workshop provides a venue for researchers and scientists (i.e. experts from the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, China, and the Middle East are expected to participate) to disperse and to gain knowledge, and advance their work through international collaborations.