IMPLAST symposia and large deformations—a perspective

IMPLAST symposia have come of age, and are valued by the IMPLAST fraternity. A brief history of IMPLAST and its growth since the first in the series was held in 1973, and the contributions that these symposia have made to the subject, in general, are reviewed. Over the years there has been a phenomenal growth in the analytical, numerical, and experimental methods for the study of large deformation problems. Mechanics of large deformations, however, is yet not fully understood, and experimental observations are of help in providing plausible explanations, realistic assumptions, and parameters for the analysis of the phenomenon. In the second part of this paper, some observations in large deformation experiments which I hope would be of interest are presented.