This workshop was held on June 24 (Tues.) and 25 (Wed.) at the Tsukuba International Congress Center. A total of twelve sessions consisting of presentations and discussions was held on this year’s theme, “Ultra Steel: Requirements from New Design of Constructions”. Despite the rainy skies, more than 400 participants from 9 countries attended this workshop.

The theme of the plenary session was "International Trends in Steel Research and Technology." Speakers from Germany, the United States and Japan each gave lectures on the present states and the future prospects of major projects and important technical research subjects that are being conducted in their particular country. The last speaker read an introduction for the 2nd ICASS, which is scheduled for next year in Shanghai, on behalf of Dr. Dong of CISRI, China, who had to cancel his invitation to the workshop due to the SARS problem.

This year there were 116 poster presentations from Japan, including 64 from NIMS, at the poster session. The proceedings of the session were written in English this year, thus the poster session has become more internationally oriented and led to some very serious discussions.

A major feature of this workshop is for people from different research fields to meet and hold discussions on a specific theme from the various viewpoints. It is possible for people who do not usually attend the same conference to have interdisciplinary discussions and to have researchers and engineers from various disciplines having discussions on the development and practical use of materials. Of course there are also places to conduct in depth discussions on a specific field.

Five technical sessions (in Japanese) and five symposiums (in English) were planned this year from these perspectives. For the first time, two of the sessions were held in conjunction with two societies. They were asked to plan sessions that were closely related to the workshop. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the Japanese Society of Steel Construction and the Japan Welding Society for their support and hope to continue this type of collaboration in the future.

Conventionally, the technical sessions provided a place for makers and users to hold debates and were held in Japanese. This year an attempt was made to conduct a similar type setting at the English-speaking symposiums. The session in English proved to be very useful because it provided an introduction of the world’s most advanced state of the art utilization technology; however, some additional twists are necessary to stimulate the debates in English. The subjects of standardization, database, and technology transfer were also adopted as new themes.

The speakers in every session presented very interesting lectures. However, there was not always ample time for comprehensive discussions. It is necessary to examine this particular problem. We hope to set aside some extra time when planning the length of the sessions next year.

The Ultra-steel workshop is aiming to become a unique meeting place where it will flourish into the only place possible to hear and debate the relevant issues. We are looking forward to your opinions and support in the future.

(Susumu Tsukamoto, Chairman of the Ultra-Steel Workshop Executive Committee)

>> Go to the website of the Ultra-Steel Workshop