The purpose of this mini-symposium is to constitute a forum for the exchange of knowledge concerning latest research developments in the field of Structural Dynamics. Within this context linear or non-linear, elastic or inelastic structural models made from either classic or composite materials (having constant or varying material properties) subjected to general dynamic loading will be discussed and analysed. It is anticipated that the Symposium will promote the dissemination of research results and ideas on Linear or Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis procedures and their applicability to structures. The topics to be covered will include, but not limited to finite element or boundary element methods, energy analysis and computational modal analysis, vibration testing and damping.

A paper submitted in this Mini-Symposium should have a content that combines numerical simulations of various problems that belong in the field of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics with relevant experimental studies through laboratory or in-situ measurements. Particular applications may belong to dynamic and earthquake response of structures and components, influences arising from seismic retrofitting towards upgrading the dynamic and earthquake performance of structures and components as well as earthquake protection measures from various forms of base isolation or energy dissipation of structures and components. Moreover, in-situ or laboratory measurements dealing with influences arising from soil-structure interaction during the dynamic / earthquake response of structural systems accompanied by relevant numerical simulations are also included. Fields of application may include a variety of modern structures or cultural heritage structures.

Uncertainty is an inherent feature of both properties of physical dynamical systems and the inputs to these systems that needs to be quantified for cost effective and reliable designs. The states of these systems satisfy equations with random entries, referred to as stochastic equations, so that they are random functions of time and/or space. The solution of stochastic equations poses notable technical difficulties that are frequently circumvented by heuristic assumptions at the expense of accuracy and rigor.

The main objective of this symposiumis to explore novelmethods for uncertainty quantification and propagation applied to linear/nonlinear dynamical systems which are accurate, efficient, and non-intrusive.Novel computational frameworks andmethodologieswhich overcome limitations of current methods for random vibration analysis are encouraged.

Topics to be covered in this mini-symposium include but are not limited to:

• Applications of stochastic dynamical systems and random vibrations to wind and earthquake engineering
• Novel methods for linear and nonlinear systems with Gaussian and non-Gaussian random vibrations
• Efficient Monte Carlo simulation methods for the analysis of dynamical systems in random environment
• Solutions to stochastic differential equations with random initial and/or boundary conditions

Vibration energy harvesting has received attention from academic researchers and industry during the last decade leading to the design of dedicated advanced technologies. Recent developments in automation, wireless technology and smart systems have necessitated the development of self and low-powered sensors and actuators. The objective of vibration energy harvesting is to collect ambient vibration energy and power electronic systems.

Vibration energy harvesting is attractive because harvested energy can be used directly or used to recharge batteries or other storage devices, which enhances battery life and reduces maintenance cost. Applications include wireless sensor systems that are desirable for structural health monitoring requiring remote operations such as off shore wind turbines.

Many vibration energy harvesters explore the ability of active materials, such as piezoelectric materials, to generate electric charge in response to external mechanical vibrations. Research in vibration energy harvesting requires a truly multidisciplinary approach from the outset. A fusion of ideas from electrical, civil and mechanical engineering as well as a union of experimental and computational methods are necessary.  The mini symposium "Vibration Energy Harvesting" aims at discussing latest the latest developments in this area. The topics to be covered will include, but are not limited to:

1. Piezoelectric energy harvesting
2. Electromagnetic energy harvesting
3. Energy harvesting using nonlinear vibration
4. Hybrid energy harvesting
5. Optimization methods
6. Vibration energy harvesting with stochastic excitation
7. Experimental uncertainties
8. Harvesting parameter identification
9. Ensemble behavior of vibration energy harvesters with random parameters
10. Robust design of energy harvesting devices
11. Computational approaches for vibration energy quantification
12. Combined energy harvesting and vibration control
13. Damping from energy harvesting
14. Energy harvesting with structural health monitoring
15. Energy harvesting across different length scales
16. Metamaterials for vibration energy harvesting

Dynamics of periodic structures is a research subject being actively explored in modern literature. The goal of this mini-symposium is to provide a forum for researchers in this field to discuss recent advances and challenges in modelling and analysis of performance of periodic structures. Topics to be covered by this mini-symposium include, but are not limited to:

• Wave finite element method and its spin-offs
• Stationary dynamics of multi-modal periodic waveguides
• Transients in periodic structures
• Free and forced vibrations of finite periodic structures
• Effects of spatial versus temporal periodicity
• Nonlinear effects in periodic systems
• Experimental dynamics of periodic systems
• Applications of periodic structures

The aim of this symposium is to discuss recent advancements in seismic assessment of bridges including linear and nonlinear numerical methods, performance-based assessment, optimum rehabilitation and retrofit techniques and cost analyses, innovative assessment methods (ambient vibration monitoring and other non-destructive methods), capacity and demand models, limit state models, high-performance computing and probabilistic assessment and soil-embankment-abutment-bridge interaction. Particular emphasis will also be placed in risk, loss and resilience estimation models for inter- and intra-city transportation networks, including, but not limited to, integration of (highway and railway) roads, bridges and overpasses, tunnels, slopes, as well as relevant software development for the assessment, management and mitigation of risk. Presentations will include, among others, recent work carried out on this topic by members of two groups dealing with this issue, the EAEE Working Group 11 ‘Seismic design, assessment, and retrofit of Bridges, and the research team of the recent research programme RETIS-RISK (Real Time Intercity Seismic Risk).

It is aimed that the Symposium will constitute a forum for the exchange of research results and ideas on currently available procedures and their applicability to the seismic assessment of bridges, tunnels and geotechnical structures forming part of roadway systems. Structural and geotechnical engineers working in this field are expected to contribute papers reporting their recent findings, while engineering seismologists can also make valuable contributions regarding the definition of seismic input for such studies. Hence it is believed that the Symposium will provide a valuable contribution to the further development and implementation of methodologies for the seismic assessment  of bridges and other critical components of roadway networks and contribute to risk reduction in these networks.

The application of methods for uncertainty quantification and management of involved dynamical systems is quite challenging. It implies performing repeated analyses of high fidelity models which are computationally very demanding. Thus, the solution of this class of problems requires considerable numerical efforts in spite of recent developments on efficient simulation strategies and advanced software and hardware implementations. One way of decreasing computational costs is by using surrogate models at different stages of the problem. In this context, it is the objective of this mini-symposium to bring together the latest advances related to the development and improvement of surrogate models as well as its application to complex problems of structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. The scope of possible contributions is wide, including the use of surrogate models and their application to problems such as reliability estimation, sensitivity analysis, reliability-based design, robust design, life-cycle optimal design, Bayesian system identification, model updating, modal analysis, structural health monitoring, risk analysis, etc.

Experience and research developments have led to significant advances in the subject of seismic engineering over the past forty years. In the particular field of seismic design, the development of a new generation of design codes such as the Eurocode 8 is an important milestone. Although this code still promotes the use of classical seismic design approaches deeply imbedded in current practice, e.g. force-based approaches considering the use of behaviour factors (q-factors) and enforcing capacity design principles, Eurocode 8 also encourages the use of more advanced methods of analysis. Although the core of such analysis methods, i.e. nonlinear static and nonlinear dynamic analysis methods, can be seen to be reasonably well established, several developments and studies are still needed from the practical use and design process point of views. Namely, an adequate safety format, similar in scope to the one involving linear analysis methods, is yet to be explicitly addressed in a framework which foresees the use of nonlinear analysis methods. Papers that address this thematic are welcome, namely on the following specific fields: nonlinear dynamic analysis; seismic input; structural safety assessment methodologies; experimental characterization of structural elements under cyclic loadings; case studies.

Valorization actions for 12 innovative anti-seismic devices will be undertaken. The devices were recently developed in the frame of RFCS, EU and national research projects by the partners involved in the project. Information documents for all devices will be produced for dissemination to all partners of the construction sector such as Architects, structural Engineers, construction companies, steel producers and all potential decision makers of the construction sector. These documents will be bundled in a volume for dissemination. The volume will be translated in several European languages. Criteria will be set on which it may be decided which of the devices are subject to CE marking in accordance with EN 15129 and which may be considered as innovative systems that require a code approval in EN 1998-1. For the latter pre-normative design recommendations will be drafted that will allow them to receive the status of code-approved systems. A reliability based methodological procedure to define values of behavior factors (q-factors) for building structures will be established. This procedure will be applied in turn to determine q-factors for structural systems with the anticipated devices. Case studies with application examples in which the devices are employed will be worked out. The case studies refer to new single story steel buildings, new multi-story steel-concrete composite buildings and to interventions for seismic upgrading of existing buildings. Seminars and Workshops will be organized in large parts of Europe. In addition, Seminars will ne organized in non- European Mediterranean high seismicity countries to promote technologies and codes developed in Europe. A web site with free access to the users will be created and promoted to practice. Printed and electronic material will be produced and disseminated to all involved in the construction sector.

The objective of this symposium is to discuss new advances in numerical methods for linear and non-linear dynamics and wave propagation. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: new space and time discretization methods for dynamical systems; high-order accurate methods including finite, spectral, isogeometric elements and others; methods with reduced numerical dispersion; filtering spurious oscillations; fictitious domain methods with the special treatment of the boundary conditions; new implicit and explicit time-integration methods for structural dynamics, wave propagation and impact problems; adaptive methods and space and time error estimators, application of new numerical methods to engineering dynamics and wave propagation problems, and others.

Significant developments have been made, in the last few decades, to provide more accurate and reliable design methods for structures, infrastructures and foundations, particularly, when subjected to dynamic (mainly seismic) actions. Numerical methods have played a major role in these advances. Nevertheless, their remarkable potential should be broadened and improved, since geotechnical earthquake engineering hazards are still difficult to mitigate.

The Mini-Symposium “Recent advances and challenges in geotechnical earthquake engineering” will offer an opportunity for the presentation and discussion on several geotechnical earthquake engineering issues. All those involved with computational mechanics, related to geotechnical earthquake engineering, are welcome to present their recent experience and research findings. Contributions related to hybrid, analytical, as well as, experimental methods in the field of soil dynamics and earthquake engineering are also welcome.

This Mini-Symposium aims to attract academic staff, researchers, post-graduate students and professional engineers dealing with advanced topics, which include but are not limited to:
Performance-based design; Liquefaction and other types of major soil failures; Dynamic soilstructure interaction; Codes, standards and safety evaluation; Foundations and Ground Improvement; Retaining structures; Slopes, dams and embankments; Tunnels and lifelines;Wind turbines; Man-made vibrations.

Model Reduction Techniques (commonly known as Component Mode Synthesis

In the structural dynamics community), have been extensively used to improve the computational efficiency in various structural dynamics problems since the 1960s. Recently, they have been employed not only for conventional applications such as free vibration, transient analysis and finite element model
updating, but also uncertainty quantifications, multi-‐physics problems, and design optimization. The aim of this mini‐symposium is to provide a forum for researchers to discuss recent advances of model reduction techniques for the computational dynamics community.

The proposed MS invites researchers to present their research progresses on the following and related topics:
• New reduction and/or CMS methodologies;
• Basis (mode) selection of important modes or degrees of freedom;
• Error estimation (both a­‐priori and posteriori) of reduced model;
• POD and ISA for modeling of linear and nonlinear structural dynamics problems;
• Model reduction techniques for non‐deterministic models;
• Industrial applications of model reduction techniques;
• Model reduction strategies for multi‐physics simulations.
• Other related topics

Dynamics of structures is highly influenced by the soil/rock where structure is founded. This is particularly true for various types of service and hazard loads, especially for earthquakes. In fact, in the case of earthquakes soil and rock do not only provide structural foundations, they act as primary load transfer agents. That is, seismic motions are transferred from the soil and rock in adjacent to structural foundations to structure. In addition, soil and rock adjacent to structural foundations will also radiate motions of a dynamically excited structure.

Proposed Minisymposia will bring together experts in modeling and simulation of the Earthquake Soil Structure Interaction (ESSI) problem. The ESSI problem is prevalent in seismic response modeling of bridges, buildings, dams and nuclear power plants.

Invited contributions will be sought by a number of experts that work in this area. In addition, Minisymposia will also be opened for contributions by other researchers working in this area.

This mini-symposium is focused on the new developments in dynamics of aerospace, civil, mechanical, structural, wind systems, earthquake and transport engineering, and dynamics of biomechanical and material sciences. The proposed mini-symposium welcomes papers dealing with traditional dynamics as well as emerging multi-physics of both analytical and experimental nature, addressing    dynamic stability of deterministic/stochastic, Hamiltonian/non-Hamiltonian and holonomic/non-holonomic, self-excitation, auto-parametric systems under deterministic/random excitations, wave propagation, solitons and waves in stochastic continuum, and waves in dispersive, heterogeneous and multi-layered medium. This mini-symposium is devoted also on new developments in numerical methods for structural dynamics and wave propagation phenomena in solids. The recent advances and properties of modern and novel space, time and space-time discretizations schemes and strategies are also discussed. Especially welcome are papers on recent and ongoing research and papers of multi-disciplinary and multi-scale nature.

Developments of instrumentation schemes on structures, critical infrastructures and soil (free-field surface or downhole arrays) at real or laboratory scale have provided an unprecedented and unique amount of data for understanding the response of such systems under earthquake or other dynamic excitations. In this regard, this Minisymposium encourages contributions on the design, configuration and implementation of monitoring networks to support earthquake engineering and structural dynamics applications based on the interpretation of the recorded data. Combined instrumentation schemes on both structures and the supporting soil towards investigation of soil-structure interaction phenomena under seismic or dynamic loading are particularly welcome. In the realm of available recordings acquired from seismic/accelerometer and other vibration-recording networks, emphasis will be primarily (but not exclusively) given to: (i) Analysis and assessment of the seismic/dynamic response of the instrumented structures, infrastructures or coupled soil-structure systems, (ii) Linear and non-linear soil response analysis (iii) Spatial variability of ground motion (iv) Verification of the recorded response based on theoretical or numerical modeling (v) Design of rehabilitation and strengthening measures for existing structures (vi) Tools and web services for data dissemination between scientists and decision-making end users.      

It is envisioned that this Minisymposium will create an interacting forum among scientists to exchange knowledge and new research initiatives on monitoring networks in the field of structural and geotechnical earthquake engineering.

Earthquakes can occur, at every time, and everywhere, and with different probabilities. They cannot be prevented, and their effects might be catastrophic. The buildings, bridges, tunnels, infrastructures, etc. supporting our lives directly or indirectly, need to behave adequately, against earthquakes. The structural systems need to be designed and hence analyzed adequately. For adequate and proper structural analysis and design, powerful and robust computational methods are essential. Considering these, together with: (a) the everyday more complexity and largeness of structural systems, (b) the speed of improvements in structural systems, geotechnical modellings, as well as the design and analysis methods, and finally (c) the existing advanced computational methods in mathematical/numerical modelling of earthquakes, there exists a broad range of computational issues in earthquake engineering to be discussed further towards the final mutual purpose of diminishing the devastating effects of earthquakes.

This MS is organized to bring together specialist from different disciplines of earthquake engineering, geo-techniques, and seismology to present their recent achievements and discuss the theoretical/practical computational issues in earthquake engineering related fields. The ground and opportunity provided by the MS would help researchers to get informed about the computational issues in their as well as other areas of earthquake engineering, and state their comments on computational areas in and out of their field, such that the computational unknowns and ambiguities existing in different areas of
earthquake engineering can be resolved and overcome faster by using the common computational/mathematical bases of the attendees. Researchers interested in the computational issues in different areas of earthquake engineering, including but not limited to structural earthquake engineering, geotechnical earthquake engineering, and seismology are very welcome to this MS.

Finally, the organizers cordially hope that, the attendees in this MS can leave COMPDYN 2017, and the beautiful Rhodes Island, with plans, for collaborations, and nice and unforgettable scientific/social memories.

Modern design codes allow the use of nonlinear analyses for structural assessment of new and existing structures, with emphasis on the effects of moderate to strong ground motions. Even though recent years have seen great advances in modeling the nonlinear behavior of structures under static and dynamic actions, there are still a number of local and global modeling issues that are still quite challenging from a computational standpoint. For example, the full nonlinear dynamic analysis of a masonry monumental building is still a very time consuming operation, and the cyclic response of brittle materials such as concrete or masonry is still an open issue. At the same time, the full cyclic response of reinforced concrete beam-column joints is quite difficult to model. These are only some of the many aspects still open when dealing with nonlinear modeling of structures.

In this context, the mini symposium intends to attract researchers dealing with nonlinear modeling issues and/or with challenging applications of nonlinear analysis to buildings, bridges and the cultural heritage.

Performance-based earthquake engineering necessitates the use of structural models, methods of analysis and seismic loads, yet they all come with an inherent degree of uncertainty. Aleatory or epistemic, it ultimately influences structural demand and capacity estimates, as well as earthquake-induced economic losses. Of interest to this session are studies dealing with any facet of this complex process including its modeling, analysis, quantification and propagation of uncertainty from the level of laboratory testing and seismic loads to the final structural design or performance assessment. We also welcome opinion papers on the future and the challenges of performance-based earthquake engineering targeting their eventual adoption in practice.

Noise and vibrations induced by traffic are one of the main causes of nuisance for inhabitants in the areas nearby transportation infrastructures. This Mini-Symposium will cover practical and theoretical aspects concerning noise and vibration due to road and railway traffic. Communications about case studies, measurement techniques, prediction models and mitigation techniques are welcome to the proposed symposium. The Mini-Symposium is targeting academic researchers and engineering practitioners to bring together interdisciplinary ideas leading to deeper knowledge about prediction and mitigation of noise and vibration induced by traffic.

Urbanization is one of the great driving forces of the twenty-first century. Cities generate both productivity and creativity, and the benefits offered by high-density living and working contribute to sustainability. Cities comprise multiple components, forming both static and dynamic systems that are interconnected directly and indirectly on a number of levels. Bringing together large numbers of people within a complex system can lead to vulnerability from a wide range of hazards and threats. The key to decreasing this vulnerability is the identification of critical systems and determination of the implications of their failure and their interconnectivities with other systems. One emerging approach to these challenges focuses on building resilience – defined here as the degree to which a system can continue to function effectively in a changing environment.

The scope of the Mini-Symposium is to present different virtual cities available in literature that can be used to test the main methodologies and framework to assess resilience at the community level.  Virtual testbeds can be used for modeling, interdependencies between simple representations of building inventories, bridges and transportation systems, utility systems and the socioeconomic systems within the community that they support. They also can be used to estimate impact and recovery trajectories of systems that are essential for community resilience. 

This Mini-Symposium aims to attract academic staff, researchers, post-graduate students and professional engineers dealing with the following advanced topics:

• probabilistic risk analysis and decision making,
• resilience of communities and structures,
• crisis management simulations;
• vulnerability analysis,
• structural optimization considering reliability and/or robustness, redundancy and damage-tolerant design

Recent earthquakes in Europe and China have caused many significant economic and society losses. For that reasons earthquake disaster mitigation is becoming for both a key national strategy and it seems necessary to enhance cooperation and mutual understanding between them.

Topics to be covered in this mini-symposium include but are not limited to:
- Codes
- Retrofitting of existing buildings and bridges
- Nonlinear modelling
- Base isolation and energy dissipation of structures and components
- Experimental tests
- Strategies for temporary  and long term relocalization of inhabitants: temporary buildings etc

The mini-symposium intends to attract academic staff, researchers, post-graduate students and professional engineers and provide a discussion platform for the exchange of knowledge concerning latest research developments in Europe and China in the field of Earthquake Engineering.

The MiniSymposium focuses on recent advances in Seismic Input for Design and Assessment of bridges which still an open research issue with major practical implications. Although reinforced concrete bridge structures might seem as rather simple structural systems, their actual performance under earthquake loading is more complicated. The reason is that, bridges, have typically an order of magnitude larger cross-section dimensions, they cross non-uniform soil profiles, their connections are not necessarily monolithic (i.e., bearing type deck-pier connections are commonly used), their boundary conditions introduce issues of geometrical non-linearity (due to the presence of stoppers, gaps, shear keys etc), while the contribution of higher modes of vibration is often significant. The above structural characteristics, yield bridges more sensitive to the assumptions made as regard to ground motion selection and scaling as well as to the consideration of the spatially variable nature of earthquake ground motion. As computational capabilities are rapidly evolving and nonlinear (static or dynamic) methods become more popular in design and assessment of bridge structures, the reliable development of seismic scenarios to be used as ground motion input is an emerging field of research.

Along these lines, this MiniSymposium encourages contributions related to recent advances in the selection and scaling of suite of ground motions for design and assessment of bridge structures and definition of nonsynchronous input with simplified or more rigorous methods. Code implications, relevant software development and case studies are also most welcome.

The conservation of historical buildings often exploits computational strategies as tools to understand the behavior and the weaknesses of the structure under vertical or seismic loads.
This Mini-symposium aims at collecting the recent advances in computational methods for the seismic assessment of monumental historical masonry structures.
Within this context particular attention is devoted to fortified structures such as bastions, castles, fortresses, towers or similar structures.

The topics to be covered will include, but not limited to:
- Seismic vulnerability of historical and/or monumental fortified structures;
- Computational strategies for finite element or discrete element methods to assess the seismic behavior of historical structures;
- Assessment of historic buildings performance by means of "pushover analysis";
- Modeling of masonry arches or vaulted structures;
- Non-destructive evaluation, monitoring and assessing of structural parameters in historic buildings;
 

A five-year research project called SINAPS@ (Earthquake and Nuclear Installations: Ensuring and Sustaining Safety) is currently on-going in France.  SINAPS@ brings together a multidisciplinary community of researchers and engineers from the academic and the nuclear world and aims at exploring the uncertainties associated to databases, physical processes and methods used at each stage of seismic hazard, site effects, soil and structure interaction, structural and nuclear components vulnerability assessments, in a safety approach: the main objective is ultimately to identify the sources of potential seismic margins resulting from assumptions or when selecting the seismic design level or the design strategy. The whole project is built around an "integrating" work package enabling to test state-of-the-art practices and to challenge new methodologies for seismic risk assessment. The purpose of this minisymposum is to present the main scientific results of the projet up to this day.

The conservation and preservation of historical monuments in seismic zone is still today one of the scientific research challenges. Within this context, the understanding and prediction of the structural response of heritage constructions subjected to seismic loads play a fundamental role. At the same time, this aspect represents a crucial task due to the complexity of the constituent materials, mostly characterized by masonry. Masonry is a heterogeneous material which behaviour depends on several features: mechanical characteristics of matrix and inclusions, interface properties, in-plane texture, out-of-plane composition, etc. In this perspective, during the last decades the scientific community has developed different approaches, in order to achieve a consistent description of historical masonry constructions.

The aim of this mini-symposium is to discuss the new advances in modelling of masonry material with specific applications to historical masonry monuments. Topics to be covered, but not limited to, are:

• Seismic assessment of historical constructions
• Vulnerability analysis
• Non-linear static and dynamic analysis
• Incremental Dynamic Analysis applied to historical structures
• New strategies for the preservation of heritage structures (SHM, damage detection,…)
• Constitutive models for masonry materials
• Homogenization techniques
• Multi-scale analysis

Vibration-based structural identification and SHM traditionally makes use of uniaxial/triaxial accelerometers or velocity meters. Also sometimes inclinometers are installed.

Recent hardware trends in SHM are the use and development of high-rate GPS receivers, laser vibrometers, wave propagation-based piezoelectric ceramic (PZT) sensing technology, microwave interferometry (radar) and optical fiber sensors (OFS) for dynamic strain and temperature measurements. Recent software trends include the development of dedicated signal processing algorithms and of optimal sensing strategies.

We welcome papers on the development and exploration of new sensing techniques for structural dynamics applications such as damage assessment or optimal sensor placement involving different sensor types.

Existing structures designed without modern seismic design provisions represent one of the largest seismic safety concerns worldwide. Such structures are vulnerable to significant structural and non-structural damage and even collapse when subjected to medium-to-strong ground shaking. This resulted in number of fatalities and significant economic losses, which promoted the development of seismic assessment and retrofit procedures for existing structures.

Recent massive reconstruction processes pointed out the need for new, practical, and cost-effective seismic strengthening solutions. Over the past three decades, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have emerged as an attractive construction material for repair and retrofit of civil infrastructures. These advanced materials have been successfully used for strengthening/rehabilitation of existing buildings and bridges. The FRP materials along with other emerging technologies, the improvement of analysis and design procedures, and techniques for installation are continually being researched. The use of advanced materials and repair/retrofit techniques will continue to grow to meet the demands of the construction industry and seismic designers.

In this context, the mini symposium intends to attract academic staff, researchers, post-graduate students and professional engineers dealing with seismic repair and retrofit of structures such as buildings and bridges with innovative materials or with innovative seismic devices. The refinements in the analysis, design procedures and numerical modeling of repair/retrofit interventions are also of particular interest.

This Mini-Symposium will focus on recent advances in the dynamics and the seismic response of rocking and self-centering structures. Research on self-centering and rocking structures is currently proliferating. This unconventional seismic design methodology relies on a change in effective stiffness, often combined with utilization of the rotational inertia of the structure. Thus, it is inherently “dynamic”, in principle “damage-free” and, hence, aligns with the contemporary demand for resilience. The survival over the centuries of many monumental structures, built as systems able to rock, attest to the superb dynamic stability of rocking systems.

In order to extend the use of rocking systems in engineering practice, several issues have to be addressed: further study their dynamic behavior; develop simplified models compatible with the current trends in seismic design; prescribe code provisions; perform further experimental tests. The main goals of this Mini-Symposium are to present the advances in the dynamics of different types of rocking structures; review recently conducted experimental and analytical research; and discuss design and construction challenges. In addition, the MS will offer the opportunity to distinguish the similarities and the differences between the several emerging “rocking”, “controlled-rocking”, or “self-centering” solutions. Papers on monumental structures and on the seismic behavior of equipment are also welcome.

Because of the always existing mass and the details of structural material as well as second order effects of structural analysis, the structural behaviour is inherently dynamic and nonlinear. Though in some cases simplifications are acceptable, in many practically or academically new cases, transient analysis considering nonlinear dynamic behaviour is essential. The existing analysis tools are generally time consuming and lead to approximate responses. Many other complexities also exist, especially in real applications. Largeness of the mathematical models, uncertainties in physical parameters, selection of algorithmic parameters, validation, verification, numerical stability, and errors evaluation, are some of the major issues. This mini-symposium is dedicated to such issues, when earthquakes are the main reason of the structural behaviour, while also pays attention to the automation of the computational solutions in academic/commercial soft wares. Accordingly, the mini-symposium is important not only because of considering the scientific/numerical aspects of transient analysis, but also indirectly from the point of view of protection of lives against natural disasters. Regarding earthquake-originated behaviours, and the corresponding structural analyses, we can specifically add to the above-mentioned complexities, the stochastic nature of earthquakes (besides that of the material), as well as, the fact that the earthquakes excitations are available generally as digitized records. These complexities, besides the specific relation between adequate structural analysis against earthquakes and adequate structural design and seismic protection, highlight the significance of this mini-symposium.

This mini-symposium is to bring together specialists in transient and nonlinear dynamic analysis as well as specialists in structural dynamics and earthquake engineering, from around the globe, towards analysis of structural transient behaviours against earthquakes in a better way, considering the accuracies, efficiencies, analysis reliability, simplicity, etc. Accordingly, contributions on different aspects of transient and time history analysis, the related issues in seismic codes, transient analysis in structural soft wares, special considerations in nonlinear problems and the stochastic nature of earthquakes, and all close issues, are very welcome to this mini-symposium.

Finally, the organizer(s) cordially hope and try the most such that, the presenters and attendees in this mini-symposium can leave COMPDYN 2017, and the beautiful Rhodes island, with unforgettable scientific/social memories as well as plans, for collaborations.

The environments in which structures and materials are required to operate are becoming ever more challenging. The risk of climate change has triggered increasing operating temperatures and pressures on infrastructures and urban systems. Often the high temperatures are combined with severe chemical environments and exposure to high energy and, in the nuclear industry, to ionising radiation. In addition, man-made threats have increased significantly over the recent years. The design of next-generation materials and structures capable of operating in these extreme conditions will be non-trivial, especially at the scale required in many of these applications. In some cases, totally new design, retrofitting, prevention and strengthening strategies will have to be developed. The need for long-term reliability in structural components means that the understanding into the dynamic behaviours of structures and materials in extreme environments must be established. Better understanding of structural conditions and its consequences of the infrastructure in extreme conditions is therefore critical to public safety, reliability, and customer experience. This mini-symposium will cover practical and theoretical methods in acoustics and dynamics of urban infrastructures such as buildings, bridges, railway, energy storage, nuclear power plant, dams,  etc., responding to extreme and uncertain conditions such as natural and man-made hazards. Topics to be covered by this mini-symposium include, but are not limited to:

  - Acoustics and dynamics
  - Extreme conditions
  - Blast and impact
  - Elevated temperature
  - Windbourne and waterbourne debris
  - Fluid-structure interaction
  - Critical infrastructure protection
  - Progressive collapse
  - Natural hazards
  - Man-made hazards
  - Multi hazards

Communications about numerical modelling approaches, prediction models, case studies and mitigation techniques are welcome to the proposed symposium. The audiences of the symposium potentially include academics, researchers, practicing engineers, governmental officials, professionals, and developers.

The workshop will present the results of European research program INDUSE-2-SAFETY. The project partnership consists of

University of Trento, Italy
University of Liverpool, UK
CENTRO SVILUPPO MATERIALI SpA, Italy
COMMISSARIAT A L’ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES, France
Aachen University of Technology, Germany
UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY, Greece
University of Roma Tre, Italy
WALTER TOSTO SpA., Italy
IGF Günter Fischbach and Associates, Germany

This research aims at developing a quantitative risk assessment methodology for seismic loss prevention of “special risk” petrochemical plants and components, e.g., support structures, piping systems, tanks and pressure vessels, flange and tee joints, etc. The proposed probabilistic based methodology will ensure safe functioning / shutdown under ground motions of increasing spectral acceleration through extensive analytical, FE and experimental investigations. The results may be important for the revision of relevant provisions of European Standard EN 1998-4.

Vibration control is a relatively new field of study that has evolved significantly over the past two decades. Since then, control theory has been used to develop "smart" devices for many engineering applications in the form of passive, active, semi-active and hybrid devices. In particular, it has been exploited in developing advanced damping and dissipation actuators for vibration control in a wide range of mechanical and structural systems such as intelligent dampers, smart base isolation systems, TLDs, TLCDs, etc.  Active and semi-active vehicle suspension systems, controllable systems to mitigate seismic-induced vibrations in buildings and semi-active control systems to reduce wind-induced vibrations in cable-stayed bridges are some examples of acknowledged engineering applications in which vibration control technology has proven to be very effective in improving the performance and structural behavior of such systems. In this context, this minisymposia provides a dedicated forum for the discussion of modelling, simulation, design and application of smart devices for vibration control of mechanical and structural systems. Particular emphasis will be given to advanced control systems, innovative control laws and intelligent actuators.  Also included will be experimental systems and applications using smart vibration control systems. Contributions on any of these issues are invited.

The recent seismic events have been highlighted that the buildings damage (public, private and strategic), designed without anti-seismic criteria or with old seismic criteria, is the main reason of the significant direct and indirect earthquake losses.

In order to mitigate the seismic risk and reduce the economic direct and indirect losses, public administrations, private, insurance companies, banks, owners and professionals, despite operating at different territorial scales, with different objectives and tools, should be perform a synergic work based on rational criteria.

Effective and reliable seismic risk mitigation strategies should been based on tools and models able to simulate the seismic effects, in terms of direct and indirect economic losses.

In accordance with the objective of seismic risk analysis and territorial scale (until the analysis on single buildings), different kinds of direct and indirect losses can be considered.

The proposed Minisymposia would like to show and compare different approaches, existing operative proposals, and cases study about the following (but not limited) topics:

- Innovative, simple, fast, readily available, and economically sustainable retrofitting strategies and optimised rules for planning.
- Definition of rational criteria for risk-mitigation policies.
- Allocation of the resources based on novel approches and methods.
- Seismic vulnerability assessment and retrofit of structures.
- Structural control, monitoring and assessment of structural damage.
- Seismic Hazard Analysis.
- Case Studies.

There is an increasing demand for improved condition monitoring of transport infrastructure all over the world. In most vibration-based bridge health monitoring techniques, the common practice is to mount the vibration sensors at different positions on the bridge and connect them to a data acquisition system. However, the on-site instrumentations are costly, time-consuming, and even dangerous, depending on the location and type of bridge. On addition, the implementation of Structural Health Monitoring is not widespread for short and medium span bridges, which are the greatest proportion of bridges in service.

The idea of an indirect approach, in which the dynamic properties of bridge structures are extracted from the dynamic responses measured in a passing vehicle, is proposed by Yang et al. (2004). Such an approach is low cost at the network level and is aimed at reducing the need for any direct installation of equipment on the bridge itself. It involves a vehicle instrumented with sensors through which dynamic properties of the bridge such as natural frequencies are extracted.

The aim of this symposium if to bring together academic scientists and industry researchers to present their recent advancements in the field of vehicle bridge interaction and its applications to indirect bridge monitoring. It covers a broad research area from simple models to applications, numerical modelling, laboratory-scale experimental case studies and field tests.

The session will focus on, but is not limited to, the following topics:

• Indirect bridge damage detection and health monitoring
• Identification of bridge modal properties using indirect measurements
• Optimization methods for drive-by bridge monitoring
• Dynamic Interaction of Trucks with Bridges and Roads
• Finite element modelling of vehicle bridge interaction
• Bridge Traffic Loading
• Vehicle railway track interaction
• Bridge dynamic amplification

Masonry infills walls are traditionally inserted in framed reinforced concrete or steel structures. During seismic events infills strongly interact with framed structures, significantly modifying in-plane strength, stiffness, collapse mechanisms and overall structural ductility. During shakings infills are also called to resist against out-of-plane inertial actions, hence their in-plane and out-of-plane capacity to resist depends on the mutual damage level achieved. Although infills are generally not included in structural models, the assessment of their contribution to the overall and local structural response is fundamental to adequately predict seismic performance and vulnerability of buildings.

This mini-symposium encourages papers presenting new findings in the field of computational modeling of in-plane and/or out-of-plane response of infilled and new advances in the assessment of their seismic response.

Topics to be covered, but not limited to, are:

• In-plane / out-of-plane interaction issues;
• Infill/frame local interaction issues;
• New proposals for macromodelling of infilled frames;
• Results of FEM analyses and analytical studies;
• Analysis and simulation of case studies via nonlinear static or dynamic analysis;
• Analysis of seismic vulnerability of infilled frame structures;
• Strategies for repairing damaged infills and related computational issues;