There is a tradition to organize IUTAM Symposia "Creep in Structures" every ten years: the first Symposium was organized by N.J. Hoff in Stan ford (1960), the second one by J. Hult in Goteborg (1970), and the third one by A.R.S. Ponter in Leicester (1980). The fourth Symposium in Cracow, September 1990, gathered 123 par ticipants from 21 countries and reflected rapid development of the theory, experimental research and structural applications of creep and viscoplas ticity, including damage and rupture. Indeed, the scope of the Sympo sium was broad, maybe even too broad, but it was kept...

The first optimal design problem for an elastic column subject to buckling was formulated by Lagrange over 200 years ago. However, rapid development of structural optimization under stability constraints occurred only in the last twenty years. In numerous optimal structural design problems the stability phenomenon becomes one of the most important factors, particularly for slender and thin-walled elements of aerospace structures, ships, precision machines, tall buildings etc. In engineering practice stability constraints appear more often than it might be expected; even when designing a...