The Second USA-USSR Symposium on Fna e 06 Compo e Mat a£h took place at
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, during 9-12 March, 1981.
This bilateral program between the U. S. and Soviet Union was organized
by Professor George C. Sih of the Institute of Fracture and Solid
Mechanics at Lehigh Uni- versity and Dr. Vitauts P. Tamuzs of the
Institute of Polymer Mechanics of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian
SSR in Riga. The First Symposium was held in 1978 at Jurmala near the
coast of Riga Bay. The primary reasons for initiating this series of
Symposia were to dissemi- nate present knowledge, to promote interchange
of ideas, and to stimulate addi- tional studies on the development of
composite materials between the U. S. and USSR. Both countries have a
vested interest in developing the capability to assess and utilize the
attractive mechanical properties of composites so that they can be
tailor-made to meet specific design requirements. Despite the in-
creasing number of published papers and articles, there is no
communication more effective than on a person-to-person basis. It is
with this objective in mind that a small group of engineers and
scientists from the U. S. and USSR have planned to meet every two years
to report recent progress on composite material research. The size of
this group is approximately sixty (60) participants. The presentation
involves about forty (40) technical papers which are published in
volume.