SUSI 2006 is the ninth International Conference in the series on ‘Structures Under Shock and Impact’. The meeting’s chief objective is to attract support from as wide a spectrum of expertise as possible and across a broad range of impact problems throughout industry.

The shock and impact behaviour of structures is a difficult area, not only because of its obvious time-dependent aspects, but also because of the difficulties in specifying the external dynamic loading characteristics and in obtaining the full dynamic properties of materials. Thus it is important to recognise and fully utilise the contributions and understanding emerging from the theoretical, numerical and experimental studies, as well as investigations into the material properties under dynamic loading conditions.

Papers are invited on the interaction between blast pressure and surface or underground structures, whether the blast is from civilian, military, dust and natural explosions, or any other source.

The list of topics gives an idea of the wide range of applications to be discussed during the meeting. Contributions in topics not listed are also welcome if they fall within the scope of the SUSI Conference.

SUSI 2006 follows on from the other successful meetings in this series, which first started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (1989) and continued in Portsmouth, UK (1992); Madrid, Spain (1994); Udine, Italy (1996); Thessaloniki, Greece (1998); Cambridge, UK (2000); Montreal (2002); and Crete (2004).