Introduction

Abstract

From the standpoint of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, of whose executive committee (the Bureau) I have been a member for fifteen years, I should like to express the satisfaction felt by the Union at the success of the Symposium on Seabed Mechanics held at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Because the Union covers equally the mechanics of solids and the mechanics of fluids (subject areas which, in some symposia on mechanics, are kept rather artificially separated from one another) the Union is particularly happy to have sponsored a meeting which so admirably blended those fields together. The Union’s two symposium Panels, that concerned with Fluid Mechanics Symposia (of which I am the Chairman) and that concerned with Solid Mechanics Symposia (of which Professor Warner Koiter is the Chairman) had joined enthusiastically together to recommend the holding of the Seabed Mechanics Symposium; and that fine body of international experts in the study of Seabed Mechanics (whether from one or the other main standpoint or from both) who attended the meeting helped to ensure the excellence of the contributions right across the whole range of the Symposium’s subject matter.