The 1st International Conference on Microstructure Related Durability of Cementitious Composites held in Nanjing, China, 2008, has generated a lot of interest. More than 200 delegates from 17 countries participated in the conference and presented their papers. The 2nd conference in this series will be held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference will be hosted by the Section of Materials and Environment, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, and will be held in April, 11-13, 2012.

Durability is an essential design criterion for concrete structures and is going to be a big issue for the service life design of infrastructure in the future. Important factors which influence the durability of concrete are the cement hydration, the chemical and physical characteristics of the microstructure, the presence of (micro)cracks and transport phenomena. Moreover, the exposure conditions and mechanical boundary conditions of a structure play an important role. The use of new types of cements and of a variety of additives/powders in order to meet increasingly stringent environmental criteria forces us to investigate the impact of these developments for the microstructure and associated durability issues. The aim of the conference is to invite the leading experts from around the world to present the recent research achievements, share the latest developments and address new challenges and innovative developments in view of enhancing the durability of concrete structures.