Physical aspects of fracture scaling and size effect

Abstract

In March 2008 about 45 scientists gathered for a week in the Centro Stefano Franscini, the conference venue of the ETH in Zurich near Ascona in the south of Switzerland, to discuss various aspects of fracture scaling and size effect. Main emphasis was on the fracture of materials with a heterogeneous (or disordered) material structure. Actually depending on the scale of application any material may eventually appear to have a heterogeneous material structure and be subject to closer scrutiny of the scaling and size effects. Themeeting consisted of mostly invited lectures by well-known active researchers in the field. In total 15 contributions are included in this special issue of International