Past Conferences
CONCREEP-12
CONCREEP12 was the twelfth conference in a series that began in 1958 and is devoted to creep, shrinkage and durability of concrete and concrete structures. Held in Delft on 5–7 June 2024, it provided a forum for debating the latest discoveries in the mechanics and physics of creep. The meeting brought together physicists, mechanicians and engineers conducting experimental research and computational modelling across multiple scales, from complete structures and engineering materials down to microstructural and atomistic processes. The programme emphasized emerging challenges in time-dependent concrete behaviour. New cements and binders—including alkali-activated and calcined-clay-based systems—create a growing need to understand and control creep, while the increased use of recycled and waste-derived constituents calls for a reassessment of prediction formulas used in engineering practice. Additive manufacturing introduces further questions concerning very-early-age behaviour and rheology, both of which can influence the long-term performance and durability of printed concrete structures. Recognized experts led debates alongside oral presentations and poster sessions covering the full range of time-dependent behaviour. The conference took place at Lijm & Cultuur, a former factory converted into a meeting venue beside the TU Delft campus, providing an industrial setting for discussion among researchers and practitioners.
CONCREEP-11
The Biot–Bažant Conference was a one-time fusion of CONCREEP and the Biot Conference on Poromechanics. Held in a hybrid format during the COVID-19 pandemic, it brought together participants on Northwestern University's Evanston campus and online for scientific exchange on the mechanics and physics of concrete, geomaterials and porous solids. The meeting joined two long-standing conference traditions: CONCREEP's focus on the time-dependent behaviour of concrete and the Biot Conference's role as an international forum for the mechanics of porous solids. The programme connected experiments, theory and computational modelling across length and time scales. Its seven tracks covered instabilities and strain localization; creep and plasticity; fracture propagation, long-term deterioration and healing; multiphysical couplings and transport phenomena; partially saturated porous materials, surface effects and adsorption; relationships between microstructure and properties; and geodynamics, wave propagation and long-term structural health monitoring. By placing concrete science and poromechanics contributions in shared sessions, the conference highlighted common physical mechanisms and encouraged collaboration across traditionally separate research communities. Named in honour of Maurice A. Biot and Zdeněk P. Bažant, the event recognized foundational contributions to poromechanics and to the engineering mechanics and physics of concrete materials and structures. Talks were subsequently archived in an open Figshare repository, extending the scientific exchange beyond the three-day meeting.
CONCREEP-10
With a history going back to 1958, the CONCREEP conference series has remained the key driving force when it came to gathering prominent scientists and engineers from around the world to discuss the peculiar time-dependent behavior of one of the oldest and most used, yet at the same time least fundamentally understood construction materials: concrete. Distinct from the traditional, standards-driven approach, CONCREEP has always fostered an interdisciplinary approach, exemplified already at the first conferences held in Munich, organized by the civil engineer Hubert Ruesch and the physicist Folker Wittmann. This approach has ever since been intensified, in particular through the ceaseless efforts of Zdeněk Bažant from Northwestern University, hosting the 1986 conference, and thereby triggering a strong transatlantic cooperation on the topic, which culminated in the 2013 ConCreep9@MIT-conference, co-sponsored by the French National Research Center - CNRS. During these developments, the intricacies of concrete have led experimental and computational investigators to enter ever smaller scales. Presently, we face the great chance and challenge at the same time, to effectively link atomistic physics to real-life civil engineering design, by incorporating the sheer boundless wealth of the modern materials sciences, progressing at fast pace. This calls for a timely continuation of the CONCREEP series at Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), a place with a rich history and vibrant activities in concrete design and technology - in the city where Ludwig Boltzmann “invented” creep mechanics: in his seminal 1874 paper published in the Proceedings of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna, he introduced the concept of creep functions associated to a superposition principle, and confirmed this groundbreaking idea by an initial experimental campaign.
CONCREEP--9
International Conference on Creep, Shrinkage and Durability Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures
September 22 - 25, 2013 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA, USA
CONCREEP9 is the 9th edition of a highly successful conference series on Creep, Shrinkage and Durability Mechanics of Concrete and other Quasi-Brittle Materials, that started more than a half a century ago in Munich (1958,1968), Leeds (1978), Evanston (1986), Barcelona (1993), Cambridge (2001), Nantes (2005), and Ise-Shima (2008). In 2013, the CONCREEP conference series returns to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. Hosted by the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT, CONCREEP9 brought together scientists and engineers at the leading edge of research and implementation of innovation related to creep, shrinkage and durability mechanics of concrete and concrete structures. While the main objective of CONCREEP9 remains true to the original objectives of this conference series, to review and discuss novel efforts in both research and engineering practice on physical origin, prediction and structural effects of time-dependent deformation, we recognize that the development of science-enabled engineering solutions requires an outreach to fields that have classically not been associated with the CONCREEP community. Specifically, through the co-sponsorship of this conference by the Groupement de Recherche International Multi-scale Materials Under the Nanoscope (GDRI, M2UN), the outreach was extended to the community of soft matter scientists, glasses physicists and computational materials scientists. By bringing scientists and engineers together, CONCREEP9 continued the tradition of the CONCREEP conference series to foster science-enabled engineering of concrete materials and structures as related to creep, shrinkage, and aging of our built infrastructure.
CONCREEP--8
International Conference on Creep, Shrinkage and Durability Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures
September 30 – October 2, 2008 at Ise-Shima, Japan
IA-CONCREEP held its eighth international conference at Ise-Shima, Japan with cosponsor of JAPAN CONCRETE INSTITUTE. IA-CONCREEP has nowadays become the main forum for discussion and dissemination of research results on creep, shrinkage and other time dependent characteristics of concrete and concrete structures through the consecutive seven international conferences, the first of which was organized by Professor H. Ruesch at Technical University of Munich in 1958.
CONCREEP--7
International Conference on Creep, Shrinkage and Durability Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures
September 12 -14, 2005 at Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France
Creep, shrinkage and durability of concrete and concrete structures have been a traditional conference topic for almost fifty years. CONCREEP8 covered the latest results and implementation strategies of creep, shrinkage and durability mechanics research at the interface of solid mechanics, materials science, experimental mechanics, and computational mechanics of concrete-like materials, and the related structural engineering problems.
CONCREEP--6
Creep, Shrinkage and Durability Mechanics of Concrete and Other Quasi-Brittle Materials
August 20 - 22 , 2001 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA, USA
Pursuant to the long tradition, CONCREEP6 at MIT presented again the latest results and implementation strategies of creep and shrinkage research at the interface of solid mechanics, materials science, experimental mechanics, computational mechanics of concrete-like materials and structural engineering. It was organized with the scientific co-sponsorship of RILEM, the American Concrete Institute, and the America Society of Civil Engineers through the Committee of Material Properties of the Engineering Mechanics Division. To recognize one of the founders of Materials Science of Cement and Concrete, the Sixth International Symposium on Creep, Shrinkage and Durability Mechanics of Concrete and Other Quasi-Brittle Materials will be dedicated to the legacy of Treval C. Powers (1900-1997).
CONCREEP--5
Fifth RILEM International Symposium on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete (ConCreep-5)
September 6 - 9 , 1993 at Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain
The Fifth RILEM International Symposium on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete (ConCreep-5) was held at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, with the administrative support of CIMNE (International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Barcelona). The conference continued the long tradition of previous RILEM symposia on this subject. This tradition started with the 1958 symposium in Munich (Germany), organized and chaired by Hubert Ruesch, and continued with Munich again in 1968, Leeds (UK) 1978, and Evanston (IL, USA) in 1986. The gradual decrease of the intervals between the symposia might be an indication of increasing importance of this subject to modern concrete engineering.
RILEM-4
Fourth RILEM International Symposium on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete: Mathematical Modeling
August 26 - 29 , 1986 at Northwestern University, Evanston IL, USA
Following the tradition of the previous symposia held in Munich in 1958 and 1968, and in Leeds in 1978, the International Union of Research and Testing Laboratories in Materials and Structures (RILEM) has decided to hold its Fourth International Symposium on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete at Northwestern University during August 26-29, 1986. Supported by U.S. National Science Foundation and co-sponsored by American Concrete Institute, the Symposium emphasized the theme of mathematical modeling. The theme of mathematical modeling is interpreted at our Symposium in a broad sense. The Symposium dealt with constitutive equations for creep and shrinkage as well as structural analysis methods, including finite elements, and it addresses the physical foundations of mathematical models, particularly the humidity and thermal effects as well as racking. Furthermore, the Symposium dealt with questions of material testing and observations on structures as far as they relate to mathematical models, their formulation, verification and calibration. Last but not least, the probabilistic and statistical aspects were emphasized at the Symposium, due to the notorious statistical uncertainty of creep and shrinkage predictions. Probabilistic treatment of this uncertainty is an important new trend in research which would hopefully make it soon possible to switch from the present deterministic design to a probabilistic design based on specified confidence limits on deflections, stresses and crack widths. To commemorate the man who was not only the founder and president of RILEM, but also a leading scientist whose researches profoundly influenced the evolution of creep and shrinkage theory, the Symposium was dedicated to Robert L’Hermite. It is fitting that RILEM L’Hermite Symposium features mathematical modeling as its theme.
RILEM-1-2-3
Third RILEM International Symposium on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete
1978, Leeds, UK
Second RILEM International Symposium on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete
1968, Munich, Germany
First RILEM International Symposium on Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete
1958, Munich, Germany