fib is delighted to support "Structural robustness and resilient infrastructure against extreme hazards 2026," taking place from 7 to 11 September 2026 in Naples, Italy.

Aim
Civil engineering structures are increasingly subjected to extreme hazards, which are not usually considered in structural design and assessment. On one hand, such hazards have a very low probability of occurrence, and on the other, they are expected to produce huge consequences on people and property. Extreme events include but are not limited to natural events (e.g. landslides, floods, hurricanes), technological events (e.g. impact, fires, explosions), man-made events (e.g. malicious actions, human errors in design, construction or maintenance), deterioration phenomena (e.g. steel corrosion, concrete carbonation), and cascade events (e.g. natural-technological events). Climate change and strong urbanization in some areas have further exacerbated the occurrence of extreme hazards and their impact. This has significantly increased the awareness of governments and standardization bodies to develop guidelines for collapse prevention and provisions in national and international structural codes. SARAH Advanced School aims at providing fundamentals of structural robustness, large displacement inelastic response of structures, disaster risk and resilience of structures and infrastructures, as well as methods for structural design, assessment and retrofitting against extreme hazards.

Lecturers
Prof. Fulvio Parisi (University of Naples Federico II, Italy) – Chair
Prof. José M. Adam (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain)
Prof. André T. Beck (University of São Paulo, Brazil)
Prof. Robby Caspeele (Ghent University, Belgium)
Prof. Bassam Izzuddin (Imperial College London, UK)

 

Course outline

SARAH Advanced School includes theoretical lectures, exercise classes, the analysis of real case studies and experimental tests, and thematic presentations. 

The main topics of the SARAH Advanced School are listed as follows: 

• Structural robustness and reliability in codes and guidelines 
• Extreme events and modelling of abnormal loads on structures 
• Forensic analysis of catastrophic failures 
• Progressive collapse and extreme resisting mechanisms 
• Reliability-based and risk-based design, assessment and retrofitting 
• Computational strategies for structural response analysis under extreme conditions 
• Probabilistic simulation and surrogate modelling 
• Robustness quantification 
• Experimental testing and structural monitoring for progressive collapse prevention 
• Multi-hazard 

For more information and to register, please visit the official website.