Slender structures, common in aerospace- and naval engineering, increasingly become a necessity in mechanical and civil engineering as well.

The slenderness of structural systems and of structural components poses particular tasks with regard to mechanical modelling, analysis of the response to static and dynamic loading, imperfection sensitivity and stability. Structural design should account for the impact of randomness of internal parameters and enviromental actions, robustness being a significant issue when seeking for best performance. Reliabilty assessment and related design optimization may be particularly important for this type of structures.

The session aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners from various disciplines reporting on the current state of research and development in the mechanics of slender structures from the analytical, numerical and experimental point of view. The discussion should help promoting interaction between disciplines and indicate directions of future research.

Please note that papers that are found to fall outside the scope of this session may be considered for other sessions.