mechanician
Timoshenko Lectures
Submitted by Managers on Sun, 2006-09-17 11:41.Listed in this post are the speeches given upon receiving the Timoshenko Medal. Every November, at the Annual Applied Mechanics Dinner, the medalist of the year delivers a speech. Taken together, these speeches provide a long perspective of our field, as well as capsules of the lives of extraordinary individuals.
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Finding damping of composite material by using ansys
Submitted by banukiran on Sat, 2009-07-04 12:19.
Finding damping of composite material by using ansys
any one please help me in finding damping of any composite material by using ansys software and what analysis has to be done regarding that one.generally in ansys damping can be given as input but to get damping as the output of composite material how it can be done what model i has to use?
Characterising fracture toughness in epoxy using mechanical fatigue. Help!
Submitted by Kaiyuan on Fri, 2009-07-03 14:50.Hi all,
I have taken up this research project/attachment on
"characterising the fracture toughness of epoxy using mechanical
fatigue", and encountered lot's of problems while researching. I'm just
a student, not even in university, but rather still schooling (grade
10), so am completely new to this field, which explains my problem in
understanding all the lit reviews, lecture slides i found online.
Luckily, i found out this site, and would hope that someone can guide
me in the right direction!
2009 ASME Applied Mechanics Awards
Submitted by admin on Fri, 2009-07-03 01:15.Congratulations to the winners of the 2009 Awards:
- Pradeep Sharma wins the Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award
- Eugenio Oñate wins the Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award
- Stephen H. Crandall wins the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award
- James R. Barber wins the Drucker Medal
- Stelios Kyriakides wins the Koiter Medal
- Zdenek P. Bazant wins the Timoshenko Medal
All awards will be presented at the Applied Mechanics Annual Dinner, on Tuesday, 17 November 2009, in Florida, at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition. Join us to congratulate the winners, celebrate mechanics, and renew friendship.
Related post:
Call for nominations for the 2010 Applied Mechanics Awards
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ASME Applied Mechanics Division Seeks Nominations for Awards
Submitted by Zhigang Suo on Sun, 2009-06-28 13:30.You can download a pdf file of this announcement.
The Applied Mechanics Division, of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, seeks nominations for the awards listed below. All the awards are international. Neither the nominee nor the nominator need be a member of the ASME. Further descriptions of the awards are given at http://divisions.asme.org/amd/Honors_Awards.cfm.
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V. V. Novozhilov
Submitted by Jerry Brown on Fri, 2009-06-19 21:09.Does anyone know anything about the life of V. V. Novozhilov, author of "Foundations of Nonlinear Theory of Elasticity"? Is he still living? Did he ever leave Leningrad?
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纪念叶开沅教授专刊(英文)征稿邀请
Submitted by sunbohua on Thu, 2009-06-11 18:01.- sunbohua's blog
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Prof. Ares Rosakis has been elected to a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2009
Submitted by Jianliang Xiao on Mon, 2009-05-18 14:37.Solid mechanician and Caltech Faculty Member Named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Caltech professor Ares Rosakis, is among the 210 new fellows elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year. They join an assembly that was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholars to provide practical solutions to pressing issues.
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Tom Hughes elected to National Academy of Sciences
Submitted by admin on Tue, 2009-04-28 19:41.
Congratulations to Tom Hughes for the election to the US National Academy of Sciences. See the full list of the new members.
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Howard Stone elected to the National Academy of Engineering
Submitted by admin on Fri, 2009-02-06 13:33.
Howard A. Stone, of Harvard University, is elected to the National Academy of Engineering, for the development of fundamental concepts and novel applications in microfluidics and for improving the understanding of small-scale, viscous-flow phenomena. Here is the full list of members elected in 2009.
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Pradeep Sharma is selected as the 2009 Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2009-01-29 01:57.
It gives us special pleasure to announce that Pradeep Sharma, of the University of Houston, has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award.
This Award was created by the Applied Mechanics Division in 1998 to recognize special achievements in research of Applied Mechanicians prior to the age of 40 years. The Award was enhanced with a substantial endowment in 2007, and is now known as the Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award.
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Zienkiewicz passed away...
Submitted by Ying Li on Fri, 2009-01-09 16:42.
Name Olgierd Zienkiewicz
Nationality British
Birth date 18 May 1921
Birth place Caterham, UK
Date of death 2 January 2009
Place of death Swansea, UK
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Xi Chen won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
Submitted by admin on Tue, 2008-12-23 02:12.
Xi Chen, of Columbia University, won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Established in 1996, the Award honors the most promising researchers in the Nation within their fields. The Award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent career. The 67 awardees met President George W. Bush in the White House on 19 December 2008.
Xi Chen's award was made "in recognition for his outstanding research involving mismatch damages in thin-films and nano-scale self-assembly; and for his elaborate education and outreach activities, including summer programs for underrepresented high school students." He was nominated by NSF .
Congratulations, Xi Chen!
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Biography of James R. Rice
Submitted by admin on Sun, 2008-12-07 16:07.Published on pages xv to xxvi of Multiscale Deformation and Fracture in Materials and Structures: The James R. Rice 60th Anniversary Volume, edited by Tze-jer Chuang and John W. Rudnicki, Solid Mechanics and Its Applications, Volume 84, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2001. This text is also available for download as a PDF file or a WORD file.
James Robert Rice (JRR) was born on 3 December 1940 in Frederick, Maryland to Donald Blessing Rice and Mary Celia (Santangelo) Rice. Located some 50 miles northwest of the nation’s capital, Frederick was then a small city of about 20,000 people, set in a rural, farming area. Commemorated in Whittier’s poem about Dame Barbara Fritchie’s patriotism, Frederick was a crossroads for troop movements during the Civil War (1861-1865) and the birthplace of Francis Scott Key who wrote the American National Anthem. JRR’s mother Mary was the child of a Sicilian immigrant family and now resides in Adamstown, Maryland. The family of JRR’s father, Donald, had long lived in that part of the USA. Donald, who died in 1987, operated a gasoline station, served 3 terms as alderman and a term as mayor of Frederick City in the early 1950s, later founded a successful tire company, and, like Mary, was highly active in Frederick commun
ity affairs.
JRR was raised in Frederick, and was the second of three children. His older brother, Donald Blessing Rice Jr., served as corporate CEO of several companies (such as the RAND Corporation) in the private sector and one term as Secretary of the U.S. Air Force under the Bush Administration. He now resides in Los Angeles. JRR’s younger brother, Kenneth Walter Rice, continues to live in Frederick and runs the business started by his father.
JRR attended primary and secondary school at St. John's Literary Institute, a local parish school in Frederick. He played baseball and basketball, worked part‑time delivering newspapers and in his father's businesses, and read a lot. Influenced by his high school teachers of math and physics, recruited from Fort Dieterich, a local army base, JRR’s early interest in auto mechanics gradually evolved into an interest in mechanical engineering. Armed with several scholarships, he began undergraduate studies in that subject at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, in 1958, one year after the launch of Sputnik propelled the U.S. into a keen competition in outer space with the then-USSR.
During his undergraduate studies at Lehigh, JRR realized his particular interest was in theoretical mechanics, especially fluid and solid mechanics, and applied mathematics. Under the influence of inspiring teachers including Ferdinand Beer, Fazil Erdogan, Paul Paris, Jerzy Owczarek, George Sih, and Gerry Smith, he did his subsequent studies in the engineering mechanics and applied mechanics programs. Paul Paris has said that for the courses JRR took from him, half of Paul’s preparation for each lecture consisted of answering the questions JRR had posed during the previous class meeting. Because of his proficiency in math and physics, JRR earned all his academic degrees, from B.S. to Ph.D in only six years (1958-1964), the shortest time in Lehigh’s record. Ferdinand Beer directed JRR’s M.S. and Ph.D. theses on stochastic processes, specifically on the statistics of highly correlated noise. The results were summarized in 1964 in his Ph.D. thesis, entitled “Theoretical Prediction of Some Statistical Characteristics of Random Loadings Relevant to Fatigue and Fracture”. At the same time, he continued working with George Sih on the subject of his undergraduate research project, elastic stress analysis of cracks along a bi-material interface. He independently developed a simple elastic‑plastic crack model, which turned out to be the same as D. S. Dugdale had already published, and then extended the model to the case of cyclic loads. His work on “The Mechanics of Crack Tip Deformation and Extension by Fatigue” was published in ASTM STP 415 in 1967, and was awarded the ASTM Charles B. Dudley Medal in 1969.
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Nowinski Lecture
Submitted by Bingqing Wei on Sat, 2008-12-06 15:23.
Professor Yonggang Huang from Northwestern University presented this
year's Nowinski Lecture at the University of Delaware on 12/5/2008, http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2009/nov/nowinskilecture112108.html.
The Nowinski Lecture Series honors Jerzy L. Nowinski, Professor Emeritus in Mechanical Engineering, for his contributions to the field of Applied Mechanics. Each year, one outstanding individual in Applied Mechanics is invited to present a lecture in the series. Below is the list of Nowinski speakers since the inception of the series, http://www.me.udel.edu/News_Events/Past_Events/nowinski_lecture.html .
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James R. Rice awarded 2008 Panetti-Ferrari International Prize for Applied Mechanics
Submitted by admin on Tue, 2008-12-02 05:10.The Academy of Sciences of Turin has awarded James R. Rice, of Harvard University, the 2008 Panetti-Ferrari International Prize for Applied Mechanics. The Academy was established in 1758 by Joseph Louis Lagrange, the Italian-born mathematician and astronomer known for his achievements in mechanics, calculus, and number theory. The prize is supported by successive endowments from the late Professors Modesto Panetti and Carlo Ferrari, 20th century leaders in Italian mechanics and aeronautics. First awarded as the Panetti Prize to Geoffrey I. Taylor of Cambridge UK in 1958, an award is made every 2-3 years and currently includes a €15,000 premium.
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A toast for John Hutchinson
Submitted by Matthew Begley on Sat, 2008-11-29 13:44.Presented at the reception in honor of Professor John W. Hutchinson. I should explain the context of my remarks. In 1995, Bob McMeeking, having exhausted himself in the endeavor of forming a useful intellect from so little to work with, appealed to a higher power and sent me to Cambridge. The week of my arrival, Prof. Hutchinson surveyed the challenge before him, and responded with the temperate and sage wisdom we have all come to admire: he packed his bags and moved to Denmark....For a whole year.... This action inspired many in mechanics. McMeeking left the country the same year (apparently to recuperate from our time together). Evans apparently entered into negotiations withe the rest of the Ivy League. And John Bassani, unwittingly left holding the bag while on sabbatical at Harvard, enforced a strict policy of my only talking to him on the way to weekly basketball games.
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Two materials scientists join the faculty of Harvard University
Submitted by admin on Sat, 2008-11-08 22:28.

Evelyn L. Hu, a pioneer in the fabrication of nanoscale electronic and photonic devices, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective Jan. 1, 2009. Read more
David R. Clarke, an inventive materials scientist recognized worldwide for his outstanding contributions to the study of ceramic materials, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Materials in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective Jan. 1, 2009. Read more
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2008 Timoshenko Medal Acceptance Speech by Sia Nemat-Nasser
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2008-11-06 00:02.
Delivered at the Annual Dinner of the Applied Mechanics Division, in the Back Bay Ballroom, Sheraton Hotel, Boston, in the evening of 4 November 2008, the Election Day of the United States of America
Before I start, let me mention my wife, Eva's contribution to this lecture. She said to me to make a draft first and then she would be happy to help me to tighten it up later on. After a day and half's work, I took the result to her who quickly informed me that: it was much too long, contained too much unnecessary details, and that, it can be reduced by 3/4th without losing anything significant!
After another several hours of effort, I took the product to her who immediately requested further reduction, by at least a factor of two!
This process went on for a few cycles when, finally, she said: "if you cut it in half, then it might be OK."
I did.
She looked at it and asked me to read it out loud.
I read: "Ladies and gentlemen, and the Timoshenko Medal Committee, thank you very much."
"Now, that is a good after dinner speech", she shouted.
Then she thought for a minute and said: "You Persians are very wordy.
If you leave out the ‘very much', and just say ‘thank you' then it
would be a great after dinner speech!"
A Mechanics-Guided Journey through Engineering Science
I wish to first thank our gracious MC, Professor Dan Inman, for his generous introduction. I would also like to thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here tonight, after several arduous political weeks of having repeatedly heard from Joe the Established Politician, Joe the Unlicensed Plumber, and Jack the Unknown Electrician, just to mention a few, to hear from Sia, the also Unlicensed Mechanician.
I am indeed, thrilled and honored to have been chosen as the 2008 Timoshenko Medalist, and wish to thank the Timoshenko Medal Committee for, at least from my point of view, a pretty good choice!
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You are cordially invited to attend a reception in honor of Professor John W. Hutchinson
Submitted by admin on Fri, 2008-10-10 01:16.
You are cordially invited to attend a reception in honor of Professor John W. Hutchinson during the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition. Download a printable version of this invitation.
Monday, 3 November 2008, 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Room: Fairfax A/B, Sheraton Boston Hotel & Towers, 39 Dalton Street, Boston, MA, Phone: 617-236-6039
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Shih Choon Fong won the Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2008-09-15 12:29.
Professor Choon Fong Shih, President, National University of Singapore; Founding President, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
For lasting contributions to mechanics, and for building bridges between disciplines and between nations
Professor Shih Choon Fong received his PhD from Harvard University in 1973, after which he joined GE’s Corporate Research Lab, where he later led its Fracture Research Group. In 1981, Shih took up a faculty position at Brown University, becoming a full professor five years later. After 30 years in the US, Shih returned to Singapore, his birthplace, as the founding Director of the national-level Institute of Materials Research and Engineering. In 2000, Shih took office as Vice-Chancellor and President of the National University of Singapore (NUS). In December 2008, Shih will become founding President of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.
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Sia Nemat-Nasser won the 2008 Timoshenko Medal
Submitted by admin on Sat, 2008-09-13 13:58.
Sia Nemat-Nasser, Distinguished Professor of Mechanics and Materials, The University of California, San Diego
For fundamental theoretical and experimental contributions in: dynamic stability; deformation and failure modes of materials; nano-electro-chemo-mechanical characterization and modeling of ionic polymer metal composites; and composites with integrated tuned electromagnetic functionality, self-healing, and self-sensing.
Professor Sia Nemat-Nasser earned his B.S. in Engineering from Sacramento State University, followed by M.S in Civil Engineering and Ph.D. in Structural Engineering, both from the University of California, Berkeley, while serving as an assistant professor in Civil Engineering at Sacramento State University. Sia then undertook a post-doctoral assignment at Northwestern University, leading to his first appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Diego, followed by fifteen years at Northwestern University as Professor of Civil Engineering and Applied Mathematics. He went back in 1985 to the University of California, San Diego, where he is Distinguished Professor of Mechanics and Materials.
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Richard D. James won the Warner T. Koiter Medal
Submitted by admin on Tue, 2008-09-09 11:21.
Richard D. James, Russell J. Penrose Professor, University of Minnesota
For pioneering the modern vision of phase transformations and materials instabilities in solids.
Professor Richard D. James received a Sc.B. in Engineering from Brown University in 1974, and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 1979. He was appointed as Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota in 1979, and Assistant Professor at Brown University in 1981. In 1985, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota, where he is now the Russell J. Penrose Professor.
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Ali H. Nayfeh is the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award
Submitted by admin on Sun, 2008-09-07 12:37.
Ali Hasan Nayfeh, University Distinguished Professor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
For seminal analytical and experimental contributions to nonlinear dynamics and structural mechanics
Professor Ali Hasan Nayfeh was born in Shuwaikah, Jordan, on 21 December 1933. After enrolling in 1959, he received B.S. in Engineering Science in 1962, M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1963, and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1964, all from Stanford University and all in a period of five years. After graduation, he worked at Heliodyne Corporation and Aerotherm Corporation. He then joined the faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in 1971, and has been a University Distinguished Professor of Engineering since 1976.
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Thomas C.T. Ting won the Daniel C. Drucker Medal
Submitted by admin on Sat, 2008-09-06 14:32.
Thomas C.T. Ting, Professor Emeritus, the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Consulting Professor, Stanford University
For significant contributions to the development of the Stroh formalism of anisotropic elasticity, and to the analyses of several fundamental inelastic and wave propagation problems
Professor Thomas C.T. Ting received B.S. in Civil Engineering from National Taiwan University in 1956, and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University in 1962. He was appointed as Assistant Professor at Brown University between 1963 and 1965. He then joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was promoted through the academic ranks to Professor in 1970. He has been Professor Emeritus since 2001. He has received visiting appointments at a number of universities, including National Taiwan University, The University of East Anglia, University of Science and Technology of China in Anhui, Tongji University, Harbin Institute of Technology, and Sanford University.
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