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Virginia Tech Tragedy

ericmock's picture

With a great many ties to VT, I have been following the tragic shootings there closely. While my former student (Nakhiah Goulbourne) and my former department head (Dick Benson) are both safe, I am afraid we may have lost one of our own this morning. From an AP report, a student stated that the instructor teaching a 9:05am mechanics class in 204 Norris Hall was killed. According to the timetable of classes at VT, this instructor would have been Liviu Librescu. I certainly hope the AP's report is wrong. As someone very interested in shell theories, I have spoken with Prof. Librescu many times and followed his work. His loss would be a great loss to our community.

Does anyone have any further information?

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MichelleLOyen's picture

According to the ESM website, the two confirmed losses in the VT mechanics dept. are Prof. Liviu Librescu and Prof. Kevin Granata, a biomechanics researcher. Also listed as deceased in the CNN report this morning is G.V. Loganathan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Zhigang Suo's picture

Here is an article in today's New York Times.

Henry Tan's picture

May peace come, May love dwell in every heart,

Oh Lord, take care of us, we are all your children …

In your Son's name.

L. Roy Xu's picture

I just read his paper on blast and shock responses of composite structures. In early April, I met him at a Solid Mechanics Conference. He walked slowly since he’s 76. However, he used his own body to save students’ lives! Check this web link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_on_re_mi_ea/virginia_tech_world_v...

Unbelievable and unbearable... In this peaceful campus...

Dr. Librescu was killed while teaching an undergrad solid mechanics course.

We were going to meet in his Mechanics of Laminated Composite Structures class in the afternoon of the unfortunate day. I enjoyed every single minute of that course for the whole semester due to his complete background and wonderful teaching skills. He knew the entire history of the course content.

The great works he left behind are, including, but not limited to, the following books (which are the ones in English):

- Librescu, L. and Song, O., Composite Thin-Walled Beams: Theory and Application, Springer, 615, 2005.

- Cederbaum, G., Elishakoff, I., Aboudi, J. and Librescu, L., Random Vibrations and Reliability of Composite Structures, Technomic Publishing Company, Inc., Lancaster-Basel, USA, pp. 191, 1992.

- Librescu, L., Elastostatics and Kinetics of Anisotropic and Heterogeneous Shell-Type Structures, Noordhoff International Publishing, Leyden, Netherlands, pp. 598, 1975

and many widely read articles in various fields of solid mechanics.

Rest in peace, dear teacher…

And rest in peace Drs Granata and Loganathan and the students who lost their lives in this carnage.

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