The Workshop will be held on the 9th and 10th of February 2009 in ESTEC (The Netherlands) and will provide a platform for discussions and exchange between engineers in the area of Fracture Control of Spacecraft, Launchers and their Payloads.


The workshop coincides with the recent release of the new ECSS Fracture Control standard (ECSS-E-ST-32-01C, available from www.ecss.nl); The purpose of the workshop is to provide a wide overview of all fracture control aspects of spacecraft, launchers, and to highlight new developments and experiences of the past years;

Potential topics include:

• Standardization (ECSS and related international standards);
• Manned and unmanned applications;
• Materials aspects: metallic and composite materials, brittle materials, stress corrosion, ...;
• Non-destructive inspection;
• Certification of payloads and experiments for manned applications (ISS, Shuttle, ATV, Soyuz, Progress, ...);
• Pressure vessels and other pressurized hardware;
• Fracture control of future vehicles and spacecraft;
• Fracture control tools and methodology (ESACRACK, elastic-plastic methodology);
• ...

We are looking forward to meeting an international audience here in ESTEC in February, both from inside and outside the ESA member states!

The format of the proceedings will be presentations. Abstracts of proposed presentations can be submitted via the abstract submission page;

The participation to the workshop will be free of charge. Participants must register via the registration page.