The Second International Symposium on Defects, Fracture and Fatigue took place at Mont Gabriel, Quebec, Canada, May 30 to June 5, 1982, and was organized by the Mechanical Engineering Department of McGill University and Institute of Fracture and Solid Mechanics, Lehigh University. The Co-Chairmen of the Sympo- sium were Professor G. C. Sih of Lehigh University and Professor J. W. Provan of McGill University. Among those who served on the Organizing Committee were G. C. Sih (Co-Chairman), J. W. Provan (Co-Chairman), H. Mughrabi, H. Zorski, R. Bullough, M. Matczynski, G. Barenblatt and G. Caglioti. As a result of the interest expressed at the First Symposium that was held in October 1980, in Po- land, the need for a follow-up meeting to further explore the phenomena of mate- rial damage became apparent. Among the areas considered were dislocations, per- sistent-slip-bands, void creation, microcracking, microstructure effects, micro/ macro fracture mechanics, ductile fracture criteria, fatigue crack initiation and propagation, stress and failure analysis, deterministic and statistical crack models, and fracture control.
This wide spectrum of topics attracted researchers and engineers in solid state physics, continuum mechanics, applied mathematics, metallurgy and fracture mechanics from many different countries. This spectrum is also indicative of the interdisciplinary character of material damage that must be addressed at the atomic, microscopic and macroscopic scale level.