During its 2004 meeting in Warsaw the General Assembly of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) decided to support a proposal of the Georgian National Committee to hold in Tbilisi (Georgia), on April 23-27, 2007, the IUTAM Symposium on the Relation of Shell, Plate, Beam, and 3D Models, dedicated to the Centenary of Ilia Vekua. The sci- ti?c organization was entrusted to an international committee consisting of Philipppe G. Ciarlet (Hong Kong), the late Anatoly Gerasimovich Gorshkov (Russia),JornHansen(Canada),GeorgeV.Jaiani(Georgia,Chairman),Re- hold Kienzler (Germany), Herbert A. Mang (Austria), Paolo Podio-Guidugli (Italy), and Gangan Prathap (India). The main topics to be included in the scienti?c programme were c- sen to be: hierarchical, re?ned mathematical and technical models of shells, plates, and beams; relation of 2D and 1D models to 3D linear, non-linear and physical models; junction problems. The main aim of the symposium was to thoroughly discuss the relations of shell, plate, and beam models to the 3D physicalmodels.Inparticular,peculiaritiesofcuspedshells,plates,andbeams were to be emphasized and special attention paid to junction, multibody and ?uid-elastic shell (plate, beam) interaction problems, and their applications. The expected contributions of the invited participants were anticipated to be theoretical, practical, and numerical in character.
