National Academy of Engineering Elects

66 Members and 10 Foreign Associates

                   WASHINGTON — The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 66 new members and 10 foreign associates, announced NAE President Charles M. Vest today. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,254 and the number of foreign associates to 206.

Francis Charles Moon is named the 2012 Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award Winner.

The Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award was established in 2008 and is conferred in recognition of an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of nonlinear dynamics through practice, research, teaching, and/or outstanding leadership.

The Award, which includes a medal, a plaque, and an honorarium of $1,000, will be presented at the AMD Banquet, tentatively scheduled on Tuesday, 13 November 2012, during the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, to be held in Houston, Texas, 9-15 November 2012.

David J. Benson is named the 2012 Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award Winner.

The Applied Mechanics Award was established in 1988 by the ASME Applied Mechanics Division. The Award was renamed the Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award in 2008. The Award is given to an outstanding individual for significant contributions in the practice of engineering mechanics; contributions may result from innovation, research, design, leadership or education.

Yuri Bazilevs, Xi Chen, and Kenji Takizawa are named 2012 Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigators.

The Young Investigator Award was established in 1998 by the ASME Applied Mechanics Division.  The Award was renamed the Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award in 2008. The Award recognizes special achievements in Applied Mechanics for researchers under the age of 40.

Applied Mechanics Division Honors & Awards Banquet, 15 November 2011, Hyatt Regency, Centennial Ballroom A&B, Third Level.

Thank you, Ares, for your kind introduction. I am greatly honored to have my name added to the list of Timoshenko Medalists. However, receiving the Timoshenko Medal has a down side. I'll describe the down side through a story told by Jean-Baptiste Leblond. At the circus in Imperial Rome a slave was thrown to the lions. The lion stalked the slave and then attacked. As the lion jumped on him the slave grabbed the lion's mane and whispered in its ear. To the crowd's amazement the lion slinked off into a far corner of the arena and sat down. The Emperor called the slave over and said “If you tell me what magic you worked I'll give you your freedom.” The slave replied “It wasn't magic. I just told the lion if he ate me he'd have a good meal but then he'd have to give an after dinner speech. “

Fortunately for me, many previous Timoshenko after dinner speeches are available on iMechanica. I will follow several of those and talk about my life in mechanics. Before I start on that, I want to mention four mechanicians who have had an enormous influence on my professional life as well as having greatly enriched my personal life: John Hutchinson, Viggo Tvergaard, Jim Rice and Erik van der Giessen. There is not enough time to detail my debt to them.

My life in mechanics began my senior year at the University of Pennsylvania. I took a course in continuum mechanics from Hsuan Yeh who was Dean of the Towne School. The course was so interesting that I decided that was what I wanted to study in graduate school. I went to graduate school at Harvard and was very lucky that a young faculty member named John Hutchinson agreed to be my thesis adviser. My PhD thesis involved the finite strain, finite element analysis of a two dimensional periodic array of circular holes (motivated by the pioneering ductile fracture studies of Frank McClintock and Jim Rice). This initiated me into two emerging developments in solid mechanics: finite element methods and materials mechanics. As John Hutchinson remarked in his Timoshenko Medal address, we did not realize we were participating in a revolution.

Professor John W. Hutchinson, of Harvard University, will receive the 2012 Ludwig-Prandtl-Ring.  The award is the highest honor bestowed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt, the German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics.   Ludwig Prandtl was a great pioneer of modern Aerodynamics.  The Ludwig-Prandtl-Ring is awarded annually to the maximum of one individual for outstanding contributions to Aeronautics and Astronautics.   

With deep sorrow we write to  convey the sad news that Hassan Aref has just passed away.  According to an email from Ishwar Puri, Head of the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, of Virginia Tech, Professor Hassan Aref went on an extended weekend visit to his home in Illinois on Thursday night.  He died there on Friday, sitting in his chair.

Katia Bertoldi, of Harvard University, has graciously accepted our invitation to be Editor of the iMechanica Journal Club. Katia has a knack to organize really interesting and inspiring symposia and workshops.  Here are two examples:

Extreme Mechanics: Elasticity and Deformation.
The New England Workshop on the Mechanics of Materials and Structures.

Katia is a dynamic and energetic researcher.  In addition to working on problems of broad interest to mechanicians, she works effectively with industries, and with people in areas not in traditional mechanics.  She is exceptionally close to students.

iMechanica has now over 26,800 registered users.  We are excited that Katia will take this leadership role, and bring iMechanica users together to discuss mechanics problems of the day.  

Katia Bertoldi, of Harvard University, has graciously our invitation to be Editor of the iMechanica Journal Club. Katia has a knack to organize really interesting and inspiring symposia and workshops.  Here are two examples:

Katia Bertoldi, of Harvard University, has graciously our invitation to be Editor of the iMechanica Journal Club. Katia has a knack to organize really interesting and inspiring symposia and workshops.  Here are two examples:

New York, 6 December 1979.  First of all, I am flattered and pleased to have the association with the proud name of Timoshenko. Over the years, my respect for him has grown, as I have gained appreciation of how much he did to upgrade the education of mechanics, in engineering. The trend which he helped initiate has continued so that, today, his works seem rather naive and unsophisticated. In part, this is naturally associated with growth on the subject. It might also reflect some good judgment on his part. There are limits to kinds of changes which rather conservative professions will accept. Such need some prodding, if they are to avoid becoming obsolete. Collectively, those of us here represent a kind of activity which we call Applied Mechanics. Like social clubs, it has a kind of formal structure of organization, or we would not be here tonight. At least some like to think of it as more than a club, a profession or some­thing like it. As a profession, it has some responsibility to pinpoint or generate the interesting and important problems, and to find ways to bring to bear the best talent to solve these. Where it fails, the profession will lose ground to another which is more effective. Times have become harder, so we can ill-afford to lose ground, and we should be more aggressive in finding new turf. I would like to reminisce about personal experiences, to illustrate these points.

Particularly, I remember two previous occasions when Ronald Rivlin served to introduce me. One was for a lecture which I gave at an ASME meeting in Atlanta. Afterward, he opined that it would be a good idea if my next performance took the form of mime. Tonight, I shall ignore this sage advice to keep my mouth shut. The other goes back many years, when I was a graduate student in mathematics, at Indiana University. Then, it was not him personally, but his research which was involved. I was not so interested in mathematics, per se, but in what could be done with it. Available courses in continuum mechanics interested me more, but didn't quite fit the bill. During my last year, Clifford Truesdell joined the faculty, and gave a course on general continuum mechanics, covering about what was later published in his now well-known article, "The Mechanical Foundations of Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics". I was excited by Rivlin's imaginative work on rubber elasticity and non-Newtonian fluids, becoming hooked on the subject. I then moved to the Naval Research Laboratory which was, for a time, a center of the activity. It is still pleasant to remember the heated but friendly arguments concerning the foundations of continuum physics, with Rivlin and Richard Toupin, particularly. Imaginative work can induce young people to enter into a field, if they learn of it. Rivlin's work got me involved but, except for Truesdell, I might not have encountered it.

We have just learned that Professor Alan Needleman, of the University of North Texas, will receive the 2011 Timoshenko Medal.

Alan Needleman has been a leading innovator in developing the mechanics of large plastic deformation and  fracture.  His career has been intertwined with the rise of the field of computational solid mechanics.  To this field he has made many significant and lasting contributions, usually as the first to demonstrate that computational approaches are both feasible and likely to yield insight.

Needleman performed the first finite element calculations of void growth and coalescence (in early 1970's), of necking in tensile bars (in 1972), of debonding using models which embed cohesive zones (in 1983), and ductile crack growth using models which simulate void nucleation, growth and coalescence (in the early 80's). There are more major contributions. He was one of the first to perform accurate numerical computation of the development of shear band localizations in realistic geometries, and the pictures of emerging bands which came out of the studies where widely regarded as "classics". He has simulated crack growth patterns, including bifurcation and branching, in the dynamic fracture of brittle materials. Most recently, he originated and still drives the effort to development computational methods to predict macroscopic stress-strain behavior based on discrete dislocation mechanics. In all these cases, his primary contribution has been to lead the way and to demonstrate the feasibility and power of computational approaches to the particular phenomenon.

George Bugliarello, president emeritus and former chancellor of Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly), an acknowledged visionary who brought about significant changes in engineering and education, died after a short illness on February 18.  He was trained in hydrodynamics and civil engineering.  His lifelong investigation was  how natural, mechanical, information and energy systems affect society.   

Rodney Hill was born on 11 June 1921.  He was a Reader, then Professor, in The Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), of The University of Cambridge, during the period 1969-1979. He is widely regarded as among the foremost contributors to the foundations of solid mechanics over the second half of the 20th century. He was author of 'The Mathematical Theory of Plasticity' published in 1950.

He established the 'Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids' in 1952 and acted as its Editor-in-Chief until 1968. He was elected FRS in 1961 and was awarded a Royal Medal by the Royal Society in 1993 'for his outstanding contribution to the theoretical mechanics of solids, and especially the plasticity of solids'.

In the following the italicized portions were stricken from the oral presentation to better approximate the time length suggested. They are retained here primarily for the preservation of historical developments in mechanics.

Experimental Mechanics of History

It is a great honor to be selected to address you tonight on the occasion of receiving the Timoshenko Medal, the award notification of which caught me by total surprise. Selections for such honors are sometimes difficult and possibly contentious processes, and I thank the 15 or so colleagues making up the various committee groups for their forbearance and benevolence towards me. I am proud of this award, because it makes me only the fourth Caltech faculty recipient, with Theodore von Karman, Eli Sternberg and Anatol Roshko the forerunners, and with two of these being heavily devoted to experimental work. I belong to a generation that no longer has a personal connection to Stepan Prokofievich Timoshenko, nor do I possess an academic genealogy which connects me to him, other than the assiduous studies of his “black books” as other Timoshenko awardees have called them. Instead, my history links me, in direct sequence, to Max Williams, Ernie Sechler, Theodore von Karman, Ludwig Prandtl, August Föppel and Christian Otto Mohr, of Mohr’s circle fame: I owe a lot to these, my academic “forefathers”.

One of the intended purposes of the addresses following the Timoshenko award dinners is, if somewhat loosely, to preserve a history of (applied) mechanics. The choice of my title implies the reverse, namely that mechanics can and does describe or control history. That is indeed true if one thinks of the structural systems that contain viscoelastic materials which require the tracking of the deformation or loading histories to describe the system response. This may be a superficial twist of words, but the realistic implications are severe, as, I hope, you will see.

Qian Weichang passed away on 30 July 2010. 

He was 98.

Qian, a pioneer in mechanics and applied mathematics in
modern China, was one of the three famous "Qians" in China's science and
technology field. He was well known alongside Qian Xuesen, the father
of China's space program, and Qian Sanqiang, a nuclear physicist who
oversaw the development of China's nuclear program.

Read the full article on Xinhua net. 

Once every four years, the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) holds a Congress, the International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM). 

The 2012 ICTAM will be held in Beijing, China.   Perhaps it is fitting that this Olympics of Mechanics will take place in the China National Convention Center, located in the heart of the Olympic Green, adjacent to the National Stadium (Bird’s Nest) and the National Aquatics Center (Water Cube).

Xiaodong Li, of the University of South Carolina, has graciously agreed to be a new Editor of the iMechanica Journal Club.  iMechanica has now over 20,000 registered users.  Xiaodong is one of the earliest active users (user number 48), and has played a large role in shaping the development of iMechanica.  He has been advocating for strong participation from experimentalists, and for highlighting significant applications of mechanics.

Professor Herbert Hui, of Cornell University, has been named the 2011 recipient of The Adhesion Society Award for Excellence in Adhesion Science, Sponsored by 3M.

The Award will be presented during the 34th Annual Meeting of The Adhesion Society in Savannah, GA, USA, 13-16 February 2011.

The citation reads:  "For his meritorious and creative contributions to the application of fracture mechanics in understanding the problems of adhesion science."

Frederick F. Lange, Professor of Materials, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, passed away suddenly on Friday, in Tucson, after watching his daughter defend her PhD.

Fred was an internationally renowned innovator in the field of the mechanical behavior of ceramics.  Although not a mechanician by training, his deep and sustained interest in cracking and toughening of ceramics led him to interact with the community of mechanics.  His creative experiments have inspired theoretical analyses, as well as practical innovations. Here is a profile of his work. 

He liked people, and traveled a lot.  His friends would receive a letter during the holiday season each year, describing his new adventures in research, his wood work, his family, and his many trips together with his dear wife.  His lectures were exceptionally entertaining and memorable, filled with perceptive remarks from the experience of a long career of a brilliant mind.

He will be dearly remembered by his students, friends, and colleagues.  

The U. S. National Congress on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics will be held at Penn State, from 27 June to 2 July, 2010. 

Deadline for early registration:  31 March 2010

For more information see http://www.conferencetoolbox.org/USNCTAM2010/

Subra Suresh, the Dean of Engineering, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is in line to become the next Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), according to this post at Science.

The NSF director must be confirmed by the Senate, although it would be unusual for a nominee to attract any opposition.

Subra is a well known researcher in the field of mechanical behavior of materials.  His books on fatigue and thin films are widely read.  In recent years, his research has been focused on molecular and cellular biomechanics. He is iMechanica user 190. 

Update 4 June 2010.  See White House Announcement.

2010 ASME INTERNATIONAL MECHANICAL ENGINEERING CONGRESS & EXPOSITION
12-18 November 2010
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
http://www.asmeconferences.org/congress2010
SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT BY 1 MARCH 2010

ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress
Orlando, Florida, November 17, 2009

Reminiscences and Reflections of a Mechanician by Luck

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

When I wrote from Prague to the great Stephen P. Timoshenko, I would not even have dreamt that a medal bearing his name would once be bestowed upon me. I feel immensely lucky and humbled by joining the august group of previous medalists, and accept this honor with feelings of deep gratitude to the Applied Mechanics Division for selecting me, and to my great solid mechanics colleagues at Northwestern for their friendship and stimulation. I thank my excellent students and associates for their collaboration; my university for a great academic environment; many agencies for funding; and my wife Iva for her loving support.  Missing any of that, I would not be here today.

I feel much sympathy for Timoshenko, who faced in his pre-American career many setbacks. So did I, albeit milder. But overcoming setbacks hardens one's resolve and may provide unexpected opportunities and enrichments. 

Timoshenko's formative years as well as mine coincided with the greatest calamity of the last century, the victory of communism in Russia and three decades later its imposition on my native land. His was an amazing life story. His father, a hardworking man, was born in serfdom, the Russian equivalent of slavery.  Against severe odds, he became a land surveyor and managed to arrange a good education for his son. After early successes in science and a quick rise in academia to deanship in Kiev, Timoshenko was fired for exceeding the admission quota for Jewish students. The bolshevik revolution in 1917 was a prolonged setback to his academic career and reduced his family to penury. After an adventurous escape through Crimea and Turkey to the West, he taught briefly in Zagreb and joined Westinghouse at the age of 42, set on a path to fame.

I was lucky to have been born into a great intellectual family. For much of my early education I am indebted to my father, Zdeněk J. Bažant, a geotechnical engineering professor in Prague, to my mother Štěpánka, a PhD in sociology, and to my grandfather Zdeněk Bažant, rector and professor of structural mechanics in Prague (who was active in IUTAM since its founding and survived Nazi concentration camp Teresienstadt). 

Xi Chen, of Columbia University, has graciously agreed to be a new Editor of the iMechanica Journal Club.  Xi is one of the earliest active users of iMechanica (user number 15), and has played a large role in shaping the development of iMechanica.  He has a broad vision for mechanics, and has made contributions to diverse topics.  in 2008, he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

The mission of the Journal Club is to facilitate discussion at the frontier of mechanics and its applications.