Foreword
Résumé
This issue of the European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering has
been prepared in honour of Prof. Jacky Mazars who retired at the beginning of this
academic year.
Jacky Mazars graduated in 1972 from Ecole normale supérieure de
l’enseignement technique in Cachan. He obtained what was at that time the highest
degree at the university, la thèse de Doctorat d’Etat, from University Pierre et Marie
Curie in 1984.
His association with Ecole normale supérieure de l’Enseignement technique,
which became later on Ecole normale supérieure de Cachan, has played a pivotal
role in his scientific career and also had a major impact on the scientific community
in civil engineering. It is at the beginning of his career that continuum damage
mechanics took off in France under the impulse of Prof. Jean Lemaitre. Jacky
Mazars took on his share of this job, applying the principles of continuum damage
mechanics to structural concrete. His name will always remain to continuum damage
modelling of concrete. His pioneering doctoral thesis is the angular block upon
which many of us built their career and their scientific life.
During the eighties, Jacky Mazars directed the research group at the Laboratoire
de mécanique et technologie in Cachan. He has been at the origin of research in
Civil Engineering in Cachan and his group, with others in Paris and in Lyon took the
leadership in computational mechanics of concrete structures in France. At that time,
research in Civil Engineering emerged with the help of CNRS and the GRECO
Géomatériaux and Cachan became a major contributor to this collaborative network.