Applied Mechanics Division - ASME

Applied Mechanics Division
Report from the Chair

2012 Newsletter




Applied Mechanics Executive Committee (2011‐2012)

Message from the Chair

Timoshenko Medalist

Awards & Medals

Journal of Applied Mechanics

Applied Mechanics Meetings and Track

News from the Technical Committees









Ioannis Chasiotis, Editor

www.asme.org/divisions/amd

Applied Mechanics Division

2011‐2012 Executive Committee


Vice‐Chair Program Chair
Kenneth M. Liechti Lawrence Bergman

ProgHruaamji aVnic Gea‐Coh air Chair Secretary
Ares J. Rosakis Peter Wriggers
Message from the Chair


My formal service on the Executive Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME) Applied Mechanics Division (AMD) has come to an end. I have served as Chair of the
Division from 2011‐2012 and as a committee member for the past five years. It has been an amazing
five years. During my term I have had the opportunity to work with an exceptional group of
mechanicians who volunteer their time to serve on this committee. I was very lucky to have been
able to follow in the footsteps of one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable committee members
I know, Tayfun Tezduyar, from Rice University. Tayfun is the sage of everything AMD. All my
committee members, Ken Liechti (Vice‐Chair) of University of Texas, Larry Bergman (Program
Chair), of the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign, Huajian Gao (Program Vice‐Chair) from
Brown University and Peters Wriggers (Secretary) from the Leibniz Universität Hannover, have
made this a great journey.



As I leave the committee I would like to welcome in our newest incoming Executive Committee
member, Arun Shukla of the University of Rhode Island. Arun’s qualifications will make him an
excellent addition to this committee.



The AMD Division is governed by the Executive Committee that is made up of 5 members. One new

member is appointed each year for a term of five years. Each member of the Executive Committee
serves as the Secretary of the Division during the first year of appointment, as Vice‐Chair of the
Program Committee during the second year of appointment, as Chair of the Program Committee
during the third year of appointment, as Vice‐Chair of the Division and Chair of the Publications
Committee during the fourth year of appointment, and as Chair of the Division and Chair of the

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Timoshenko, Koiter, Drucker, Caughey, Belytschko and Hughes Medal/Award Committees during
the final year of appointment.

The overall aims of the Division, as stated in the AMD bylaws is “to foster the intelligent use of
mechanics by engineers and to develop this science to serve the needs of engineering. Mechanics is
construed to include fundamental analytical and experimental studies in the fields of biomechanics,
composite materials, computing methods, dynamics, elasticity, experimental methods, fracture,
geomechanics, hydrodynamics, lubrication, fluid dynamics, mechanical properties of materials,
micromechanics, plasticity and failure, plates and shells, wave propagation and related fields… the
Applied Mechanics Division is not primarily concerned with design data, but with methods and
approaches that yield a new level of understanding and which may provide the basis for new design
information.”

The Applied Mechanics Division of the ASME is not only one of the oldest (founded in 1927) but, is
also the largest division of the six divisions that make up the ASME Basic Engineering Group. These
divisions are: Applied Mechanics (4958), Bioengineering (1,983), Fluids Engineering (2902), Heat
Transfer (3,303), Materials (1,832) and Tribology (463).

The ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) was held
in November 2011 in Denver, Colorado. Every year the AMD conference track, Mechanics of
Solids, Structures and Fluids has done exceptionally well. The 2011‐Track 12, chaired by Larry
Bergman and vice‐chair Huajian Gao, was a great success with 29 symposia and about 400
presentations. Also, the upcoming 2012, chaired by Huajian Gao and vice‐chair Peter Wriggers will
be no exception, in fact, it may be one of the most successful conferences we have ever had. This
success is due to the dedication and hard work of all involved.

Highlights, of 2011 ASME‐IMECE Track‐12, were the plenary lectures which were delivered by Ken
Chong, George Washington University, Washington, DC. Ken spoke on “Nuclear Energy: Safety,
Production, Mechanics Research and Challenges” and David Gartling, Sandia National Laboratory,
Albuquerque, NM who spoke on “A Finite Element Method for Ablation Problems”.

The 2011 Daniel C. Drucker Medalist, John Rudnicki, Northwestern University spoke on
“Formation and Extension of Localized Compaction in Porous Sandstones”.

The 2011 Warner T. Koiter Medalist, James G. Simmonds, The University of Virginia spoke on “The
Simple Logic of Classical Nonlinear Thermodynamic Shell Theory”.



2011 ASME Applied Mechanics Division (AMD) Annual Honors and Awards Banquet

Every year in November I look forward to the Annual ASME AMD Honors and Awards Banquet, this
last year it was held in Denver, Colorado, and I had the pleasure of presiding over this very special
evening. This was the most memorable event of my term as AMD Chair. We, mechanicians, come
together to spend a few fantastic hours where we visit with our colleagues and friends from around
the world and honor many of them for their contributions in our field of mechanics. I had the
pleasure of presenting the ASME‐AMD Division and Society awards, the AMD Student Paper
Competition awards, the AMD‐Haythornthwaite Foundation Travel Awards and thanks to the
generosity of the Robert M and Mary Haythornthwaite Foundation this year we had a new award to
give, the 2011 AMD‐Haythornthwaite Research Initiation Grants Awards. Below are the awards
presented at the AMD Honors and Awards Banquet in November 2011.

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Fellow of ASME:

This year I had the pleasure of presenting an additional award at the AMD Banquet. I was honored
to present Fu‐Pen Chiang (Stony Brook University) with his Fellowship Certificate for being elected
Fellow of ASME. The ASME confers the Fellow grade of membership on worthy candidates to
recognize their outstanding engineering achievements. Fu‐Pen is truly deserving of this prestigious
honor and I was happy to be a part of this.




Haythornthwaite Foundation:

As I mentioned The Robert M. and Mary Haythornthwaite Foundation has been a generous
supporter of the Applied Mechanics Division. They support scientific research, primarily research
in the field of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. The Foundation now sponsors the three AMD
award categories below.



The 2011 AMD‐Haythornthwaite Research Initiation Grants Awards:

This past year the Applied Mechanics Division, through the generosity the Haythornthwaite
Foundation, agreed to sponsor a new divisional award, the Haythornthwaite Research
Initiation Grant. This new grant targets university faculty that are at the beginning of their
academic careers engaged in research in theoretical and applied mechanics. I am glad to
say we were able to fully fund three grants. The three recipients of the 2011grants were:



 Christian Franck (Brown University) “Custom‐designed Uniaxial Compression Device
for Measuring the Mechanical Response of Soft Biomaterials”


 Dennis Kochmann (California Institute of Technology) “A Unique Test Device for
Viscoelastic Spectroscopy of Composites Containing Piezoelectric Constituents


 Xuanhe Zhao (Duke University) “Electro‐Chemo‐Mechanics of Silicon Electrodes in
Lithium‐Ion Batteries”


Exciting news! The Haythornthwaite Foundation has very generously agreed to increase
the amount of their donation for these research initiation grants. And AMD will also
generously match a portion of this contribution to increase the number/amount of
initiation grant awards.


The 2011 AMD‐Haythornthwaite Foundation Student Travel Award:
The Applied Mechanics Division, Executive Committee continues to seek ways to involve

and encourage younger members and particularly graduate students in the activities of the
AMD Division.



Through the annual support of The Robert M. and Mary Haythornthwaite Foundation six
travel grants were awarded in 2011. These travel grants are offered to U.S. graduate
students currently enrolled at U.S. universities or colleges presenting a paper in any field of
applied mechanics. The winning papers will be presented at the 2012 International
Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exhibition (IMECE) in the upcoming conference in
Houston, TX. The 2011 winners were:


 Baptiste Coudrillier – (Johns Hopkins University) “Effect of the Scleral Collagen

Structure on the Mechanical Response of the Optic Nerve Head”

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 Qi (Kevin) Ge – (University of Colorado) “Thermo‐mechanical Behaviors of Shape

Memory Elastomer Composites”


 Zheng Jia – (University of Maryland ) “In situ Experiments and Mechanics modeling of

Tensile Cracking in Indium Tin Oxide Thin Films on Polyimide Substrates”


 Theresa M. Koys – (Johns Hopkins University) “A Thin Shell Inflation Method for the
Anisotropic Properties of Human Skin Tissues”


 Shuodao Wang – (Northwestern University) “Mechanics of Curvilinear Electronic”


 Qiming Wang – (Duke University) “Creasing to Cratering Instability in Polymers
under Electric Fields”


The 2011 Applied Mechanics Division (AMD) Student Paper Contest Winners:

The Applied Mechanics Division encourages the involvement of graduate students in the
activities of the AMD Division. One of the ways is the sponsorship of the annual Student
Paper Contest. The recipients of this prize are chosen from the Haythornthwaite Student
Travel contest award pool sponsored by the Haythornthwaite Foundation. The 2011
winners were:


 1st Place prize: Baptiste Coudrillier – (Johns Hopkins University)
Effect of the Scleral Collagen Structure on the Mechanical Response of the
Optic Nerve Head


 2nd Place prize: Qiming Wang – (Duke University)
Creasing to Cratering Instability in Polymers under Electric Fields


 3rd Place prize: Shuodao Wang – (Northwestern University)
Mechanics of Curvilinear Electronics



Journal of Applied Mechanics:



The AMD Journal of Applied Mechanics (JAM) thanks outgoing Editor, Robert McMeeking
(University of California, Santa Barbara) we are very grateful for his excellent leadership,
service and dedication he provided during his two (5‐year) terms as Editor of JAM. Bob
was presented with his certificate of service, which will end on July 1, 2012, and at the same
time we welcomed in the incoming Editor – Yonggang Huang (Northwestern University). For
the calendar year 2010 there were 130 papers technical papers published and for the fiscal
year 2011 which is from July 1, 2010 until June 30, 2011 there were approximately 136
papers.


Applied Mechanics Review:

The AMD‐Applied Mechanics Review (AMR) thanks outgoing AMR Editor, JN Reddy (Texas
A&M University) for his superb service during his term as Editor and for his outstanding
performance. We also welcomed in the 2012 incoming Editor, Harry Dankowicz (University
of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign) whose term began on January 1, 2012.


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Special Mention:



Also, I would like to mention several other members of the ASME‐AMD team that are
responsible for pulling this all together every year. Yuri, Bazilevs (University of California,
San Diego) has been serving as the Recording Secretary for the AMD Executive Committee
and has done a fantastic job. Ioannis Chasiotis (University of Illinois) has been serving as
the Editor of this newsletter and produces an excellent informative edition yearly. Jacinta
McComie (ASME Headquarters) for many years has been providing support to the AMD and
dealing with each of us as we transition to our new duties. She takes care of the AMD
Honors and Awards Banquet, the brochure and the medals. Stacey Cooper, (ASME
Headquarters) provides support with the IMECE congress organization and web tools.





Looking forward – The 2012 ASME‐IMECE in Houston, Texas


I am looking forward to seeing everyone in November 2012 at the ASME International Mechanical
Engineering Congress and Exposition, to be held in Houston, Texas November 9‐15, 2012. It is
going to be a VERY special ASME meeting where a lot of the super stars of mechanics will be
honored on both Monday, November 12th and Tuesday, November 13th. Here are some of the
individuals that will be honored in November 2012.

Subra Suresh (Director, National Science Foundation) ‐ the Timoshenko Medal.
Zdenek Bazant (Northwestern University) – 2012 ASME Honorary Member.
Jan Achenbach (Northwestern University) ‐ the 2012 ASME Medal.
Zhigang Suo (Harvard University) ‐ the 2012 Thurston Lecturer.
Wei Yang (President of Zhejiang University) ‐ the 2012 Calvin W. Rice Lecture Award.
Pol Spanos (Rice University) – the 2012 Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award.



During the Applied Mechanics Division’s Honors and Awards Banquet:



Subra Suresh (National Science Foundation) ‐ Timoshenko Award lecture.
Jim Dally (University of Maryland) ‐ the Daniel C. Drucker Medal.
Erik van der Giessen (University of Groningen) ‐ the Warner T. Koiter Medal.
Frank Moon (Cornell University) ‐ the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award.
David Benson (University of California, San Diego) ‐ the Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award.
Kenji Takizawa (Waseda University) ‐ the Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Awards.
Xi Chen (Columbia University) ‐ the Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Awards.
Yuri Bazilevs (Univ. of California, San Diego) ‐ the Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Awards.

iMechanica
Please don’t forget to frequent and post everything about mechanics on iMechanica. This is an
excellent source for all the great things that are happening in the mechanics community.



Ares J. Rosakis, 2011‐ 2012
Chair, Applied Mechanics Division




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TRACK ON MECHANICS OF SOLIDS, STRUCTURES AND FLUIDS SUCCESSFUL AT IMECE
2011

Track 12 Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Fluids at ASME IMECE 2011 in Denver, CO was
once again the principal focus of Mechanics‐related topics. The AMD Executive Committee extends
its thanks to the AMD Technical Committees and affiliated ASME groups as well as the Topic Chairs
and Co‐Chairs for their considerable effort, leading to a successful event. There were more than 400
presentations spread over 39 Topics. The program began with a plenary session featuring the
Drucker Medal recipient, John Rudnicki of Northwestern University, and the Ted Belytschko
Applied Mechanics Award recipients, David Gartling of Sandia National Labs and Ken Chong of the
National Science Foundation. Rudnicki’s presentation was entitled “Formation and Extension of
Localized Compaction in Porous Sandstones;” Gartling’s was “A Finite Element Method for Ablation
Problems;” and Chong’s was “Nuclear Energy: Safety, Production, Mechanics Research and
Challenges.” Additional highlights of the Track included a symposium honoring the Drucker
Medalist and the Koiter Lecture, delivered by the Koiter Medalist, Jim Simmonds of the University of
Virginia, entitled “The Simple Logic of Classical Nonlinear Thermodynamic Shell Theory.” We look
forward to another successful IMECE, in November 2012, under the able guidance of (now) Track 9
Chair, Huajian Gao.

Larry Bergman, Chair
Track 12: Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Fluids
IMECE 2011







THE 2011 AMD AND ASME SOCIETY AWARDS




TIMOSHENKO MEDAL Alan Needleman

The Timoshenko Medal was established in 1957
and is conferred annually in recognition of

distinguished contributions to the field of

applied mechanics. Instituted by the Applied

Mechanics Division, it honors Stephen P.

Timoshenko, world renowned authority in the

field, and it commemorates his contributions as

author and teacher. The 2010 Timoshenko
Medal was awarded to Professor Alan

Needleman of the University of North Texas,



for seminal contributions to the understanding of inelastic deformation and failure of materials.


The acceptance speech that follows was presented at the Applied Mechanics Dinner of the 2011

ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress in Denver, Colorado, on Tuesday, November

15, 2011.

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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.

At that time finite element methods were not well regarded by much of the solid mechanics
community. Too many years passed before computational mechanics was accepted and integrated
into mainstream solid mechanics. I am pleased that the situation is very different now as evidenced
by the Timoshenko Medal having been awarded to Oleg Zienkiewicz, Tinsley Oden, Ted Belytschko
and Tom Hughes. Materials mechanics was more readily accepted and became a source of
wonderfully challenging problems. It has stimulated the development of new mechanics theories
and experimental methods, particularly those aimed at understanding small size scale phenomena.
Conversely, it has led to solid mechanics having a significant impact on materials science and
engineering.

I finished my PhD work at Harvard in the summer of 1970 and got a job as an Instructor in Applied
Mathematics at MIT. To start my research career, I decided to build on my expertise and proposed
analyzing a two dimensional array of elliptical holes. You can imagine my disappointment when no
one showed any interest in this or any willingness to support it. So I dropped it and decided to work
on something that excited me which was an idea in the literature that tensile necking, like buckling,
could be regarded as a bifurcation. I thought it would be fun to do the bifurcation analysis and
calculate the subsequent neck development using finite elements. That worked out well and I was
asked to give a seminar on this work by Harvey Greenspan, then the head of Applied Math. He gave
me some sage advice “No one every complained that a lecture was too short.” I have tried, not
always successfully, to follow his advice. The title of my talk was “Necking in Bars.” To the best of
my knowledge it is the only MIT Applied Math talk ever listed in the entertainment section of the
local paper.

Midway through my stay at MIT I had a leave of absence at the Technical University of Denmark and
began my collaboration with Viggo Tvergaard. Viggo and I worked on buckling and when I came

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back from Denmark I got excited about a plastic buckling issue. My idea was that the so‐called
plastic buckling paradox could be resolved by considering three dimensional effects. I mentioned
my idea to John Hutchinson who knew I was clearly wrong but didn't try to dampen my enthusiasm.
I am grateful for that. Eventually I realized I was wrong, learned how to differentiate between
excitement and insight, and to accept being wrong and then move on. During my time at MIT I was
free to pursue whatever excited me and was able to develop my own research style.

After five years at MIT I was told my services were no longer needed and I was extremely fortunate
to wind up at Brown. One area I worked on when I started at Brown was necking problems related
to sheet metal forming. I gave a presentation on some of that work at a Canadian Applied
Mechanics Conference. I don't remember my talk but I do remember that, at least in one respect, my
presentation was the hit of the conference. The speaker at the conference dinner was the Minister
of Education of British Columbia. She began her speech by saying that she had been looking through
the book of abstracts during dinner and the titles meant nothing to her until she came across
“Necking in Thin Sheets.” That title she could relate to. But she had one question, “Why do the
sheets have to be thin?” Fortunately, I was sitting too far in the back to be expected to provide an
answer.

There was a great deal of intellectual excitement in solid mechanics at Brown in the late 1970s.
Much of it stemmed from Jim Rice who had many original and deep ideas, and was generous in
sharing them. One topic was the coupling of grain boundary diffusion and plastic creep in
polycrystalline metals. Plastic deformation could effectively shorten diffusion lengths so there could
be a synergistic effect. Quantifying this required numerical calculations. That's where I came in. The
finite element formulation of this problem involved creating a stiffness matrix with surface terms
accounting for grain boundary diffusion in addition to the usual volumetric terms. The calculations
quantified a significant synergistic effect. Years later the idea of a finite element formulation with
separate constitutive descriptions for volumes and surfaces was to play a prominent role in my
research.

In the 1960s and 70s computations were carried out at a central university computer center and
CPU time was a scarce resource. Programs were written on punch cards and submitted to computer
operators over a counter not unlike the counter at a fast food restaurant. However, the turnaround
time was measured in hours rather than minutes. What came back was a stack of paper that either
contained error messages or a print out of numbers that hopefully corresponded to a meaningful
result. Draftsmen were employed to turn the numbers into pictures. Computer terminals replaced
cards toward the end of this period but the rest of the process was pretty much the same.

A huge change came at the end of the 70s when the solid mechanics group at Brown acquired a
dedicated computer for computational mechanics, a DEC VAX 780. This acquisition provided me
with a lesson in humility. The DEC salesman mentioned that the standard VAX configuration
included one 67 MByte disk. He asked if I wanted to purchase a second disk. I answered “No, we'll
never fill up 67 MBytes.” The VAX 780 consisted of several refrigerator size cabinets and could do
double precision floating point operations at about 0.14 MFlops. To put this in perspective it is less
than 1/100 the speed of a modern smartphone. But we were thrilled with its performance and it
opened up new possibilities for simulation.

Again largely stimulated by Jim Rice's interests, I became involved in research on plastic flow
localization (a seminal paper on that topic was co‐authored by Jim and this years' Drucker Medalist
John Rudnicki). The conditions for initiation were established but determining the evolution
required computation. Viggo was visiting Brown and our first project on the VAX was calculating

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shear band development using the J2‐corner theory that John Hutchinson and Jes Christoffersen had
developed. I found it exciting to be able to simulate the evolution of such complex deformation
patterns. I was so pleased with the resulting pictures that I brought a reprint home and proudly
showed it to our 6 and 8 year old children saying “Look what I did.” One of them (I don't remember
which) said “No, you didn't. You're not smart enough. Mommy probably did it.” Another lesson in
humility.

At about the time Viggo and I were doing our calculations Bob Asaro was investigating localized
deformation in single crystals experimentally. In work with Bob and Dan Peirce we found that rate
independent single crystal calculations completely broke down for a certain range of parameters of
interest. Eventually we found that accounting for material rate dependence could eliminate the
pathological behavior. Rate dependent single crystal calculations were able to simulate observed
deformation responses remarkably well.

An issue with the rate independent localization calculations with Viggo and Bob was that the
formulation did not contain a material length scale. The band thickness and hence the post‐
localization response were essentially determined by the finite element discretization rather than
by any mechanism embedded in the modeling. Material rate dependence in effect led to the
introduction of a length scale. Whether or not this is the governing length scale in a specific
situation is another matter but we found that rate dependence can regularize localization problems.
I like to think that our computations of localized deformation modes played a role in stimulating at
least some of the subsequent work on incorporating a material length scale into continuum
plasticity theories.

Meanwhile Jim Rice, Ben Freund and their collaborators were carrying out pioneering studies in
fracture mechanics. What got me excited was the possibility of using computation to directly
simulate fracture. This led to a series of micromechanical fracture studies with Viggo. Again, a key
issue is how to incorporate a length scale into the formulation. A main aim of the fracture
simulations that Viggo and I (and now many others) are engaged in is to relate measurable and
(hopefully) controllable features of a material's microstructure to its fracture resistance to provide
a basis for designing more fracture resistant material systems. Rather than quantitative predictions
these simulations seek to provide trends, scaling relations and insight into the mechanisms
controlling toughness and ductility.

Throughout my time at Brown there was a wonderful spirit of cooperation and interaction. Many of
the projects I worked on came from discussions in the hallways or over lunch or coffee. Just to
mention one example: my work on cohesive modeling started after an informal talk Steve Nutt gave
where he showed some pictures of void nucleation at a fiber end in an Al‐SiC composite. The
combination of Steve's micrographs and my earlier work with Jim Rice on grain boundary diffusion
led to the idea to regard a continuum as consisting of both surfaces and volumes, with a constitutive
relation for each. Hence, an initial crack was not needed to use a Barenblatt/Dugdale type cohesive
relation. A cohesive framework introduces a length scale and can be used to create new free surface
thus modeling crack initiation. The computer code from the grain boundary diffusion work had the
infrastructure to implement this. In subsequent work, with Ares Rosakis and later with Yehuda
Ben‐Zion, we analyzed rupture propagation along surfaces described by frictional constitutive
relations using basically the same computational infrastructure.

There were group grants at Brown that made it possible to explore new areas of research without
worrying about financial support (if you were not an experimentalist). Because of this I was able to
develop my collaboration with Erik van der Giessen on discrete dislocation plasticity. Discrete

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dislocation plasticity also introduces a length scale (in fact several length scales). So now instead of
no length scale, identifying the governing length scale in a problem can be an issue. One of my
favorite projects in this area was our work with Vikram Deshpande on fatigue crack growth that
gave a fatigue threshold and a Paris law as natural outcomes of the simulations. Another was our
work with Lucia Nicola and Joost Vlassak of Harvard which involved a direct comparison of our
simulations for stress evolution in thin films with Joost's experiments.

Quite generally, I regard what I do as solid mechanics simulation: an idealized model is created that
is governed by the equations of mechanics which are then solved computationally. Such
simulations can be a powerful tool for gaining insight into features that are not directly accessible
experimentally. Comparison of predicted observables with experiment is a win‐win situation:
agreement gives confidence in the predictions while disagreement can point the way to the
development of improved theories and models. Another role for such simulations is to identify
regions of parameter space that merit experimental exploration. I find it gratifying that this actually
happened in work with Ares and Demir Coker. What has typically been missing from solid
mechanics simulations is a statistical perspective. I will venture a prediction that a statistical
perspective will become more prevalent in the future.

Over my years at Brown I benefited enormously from collaborations with many people in addition
to those named already. There isn't time to name them all but I will mention a sampling:
extraordinary colleagues including Fong Shih, Subra Suresh, Michael Ortiz, K.S. Kim, Ben Freund,
Rod Clifton and Bill Curtin; wonderful collaborators from around the world including Yves Bréchet,
Mort Gurtin, Norman Fleck, Xavier Oliver and René de Borst; and an excellent group of students and
post‐doc visitors including Nick Triantafyllidis, Rich Becker, Xiaopeng Xu, Amine Benzerga and
Alfredo Huespe.

I retired from Brown after being a faculty member for 34 years to be closer to grandchildren. I was
very fortunate to get a position in the University of North Texas (UNT) Materials Science and
Engineering Department which is in an exciting stage of development. Quite a few of my recent
collaborators have been women researchers including Julia Greer, Elisabeth Bouchaud, Cate
Brinson and Linda Schadler. I hope to be in the audience when the first female Timoshenko
Medalist delivers her address.

Finally, I'd like to thank my wife Wanda who has had her own career as an accomplished
psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Because of her work schedule I had to be involved with family as
well as pursue my career. I am very proud to be a Timoshenko Medalist. I am also proud that when
our children were small I was known as a nursery school mommy. Those nursery school children
are now both faculty members; Deborah in English Literature at UNT and Daniel in Engineering and
Applied Sciences at Harvard (where I got my PhD).

I close by expressing my appreciation for this extraordinary honor and thank everyone who made it
happen.


Professor Alan Needleman
University of North Texas

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DANIEL C. DRUCKER MEDAL John W. Rudnicki

The Daniel C. Drucker Medal was established in

1997 and is conferred in recognition of

distinguished contributions to the field of applied

mechanics and mechanical engineering through

research, teaching and service to the community

over a substantial period of time. Instituted by the
Applied Mechanics Division, the medal honors Dr.

Daniel Drucker and commemorates his service to

the profession.

The 2011 Daniel C. Drucker Medal was conferred to Professor John W. Rudnicki, from

Northwestern University



for providing a new fundamental understanding of deformation instabilities in brittle rocks and

granular media, including their interactions with pore fluids, with applications to fault instability,

quantification of energy radiation from earthquakes, and environment and resource‐related

geomechanics.









WARNER T. KOITER MEDAL James G. Simmonds

The Warner T. Koiter Medal, established in

1996, is bestowed in recognition of

distinguished contributions to the field of solid

mechanics with special emphasis on the

effective blending of theoretical and applied

elements of the discipline, and on a high degree

of leadership in the international solid
mechanics community.


The award was funded by the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands, to honor Warner T.

Koiter for his fundamental work in nonlinear stability of structures in the most general sense, for

his diligence in the effective application of these theories, his international leadership in mechanics,

and his effectiveness as a teacher and researcher.



The 2011 Warner T. Koiter Medal was conferred to Professor James G. Simmonds from the

University of Virginia



for rigorous, seminal contributions to linear and nonlinear theories in solid mechanics with special

emphasis on plates and shells; for an extensive body of journal publications and books on solid

mechanics and applied mathematics.









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TED BELYTSCHKO Ken P. Chong David K. Gartling
APPLIED MECHANICS AWARD

The Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award is

bestowed to an outstanding individual for

significant contributions in the practice of

engineering mechanics. The contributions of this

individual may result from innovation, research,

design, leadership or education.

The award was established in 1988 and was
renamed the Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics

Award in 2008.

This year the AMD gave two awards to:



 Ken P. Chong (George Washington University)

In recognition of his role as an educator, a journal editor and promoter of Mechanics, particularly

in emerging areas

 David K. Gartling (Sandia National Laboratories)
For his internationally regarded contributions to computational mechanics and pioneering
developments in the application of the finite element method to fluid dynamics.



THOMAS J.R. HUGHES Markus Buehler Ioannis Chasiotis

YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARD

The Thomas J.R. Hughes Young
Investigator Award recognizes
special achievement for young
investigators in Applied Mechanics.
The nominees must not have
reached their 40th birthday at the
time of nomination. The award was
established in 1998 and renamed the
Thomas J.R. Hughes Young
Investigator Award in 2008.

This year the AMD gave two Young Investigator Awards. The recipients were:


 Markus Buehler (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Received for exceptional contributions in computational mechanics of biological materials and
structures, focused on deformation and failure in the context of both normal physiological,
mechanically extreme and disease states through the utilization of atomistic, molecular, coarse‐
grained and continuum methods


 Ioannis Chasiotis (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)
Received in recognition of outstanding contributions to the understanding of the mechanics of
fracture of polycrystalline and nanocrystalline thin films, and the time dependent mechanics of
nanoscale polymeric fibers with pioneering full‐field experimental methods based on Atomic Force
Microscopy and MEMS.

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THOMAS K. CAUGHEY DYNAMICS AWARD Philip Holmes

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 2011 Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Awardee was Professor Philip
Holmes from Princeton University

in recognition of his scholarly work in Nonlinear Dynamics and Vibrations. His work revolutionized
engineering nonlinear dynamics and vibrations, bridging the gap between Applied Mathematics and
Engineering through the application of powerful concepts and methodologies of nonlinear dynamics
to engineering practice.







NEWS FROM THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEES

The reports that follow are from some of the Chairs of the Technical Committees of the Division of
Applied Mechanics. If you are interested in the activities of a particular committee, please feel free
to contact the Chair.



Composite Materials Committee

Chair: Hassan Mahfuz, Florida Atlantic University (2011‐2013)

Vice Chair: Ioannis Chasiotis, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign (2011‐2013)



This year, AMD Composite Materials Committee Meeting was held on Tuesday, November 15, 2011

at Colorado Convention Center (Denver) ‐ Room 602, Street Level, at 1:00 PM ‐ 2:00 PM.
24 committee members were in attendance at the meeting.



The symposia sponsored and co‐sponsored by the AMD Composite Committee in IMECE 2011 were

a true success. A total of 12 symposia were organized with 24 sessions and 120 papers. Many

symposia were co‐sponsored with the Materials Division. The following symposia were proposed

for IMECE 2012:

1. Multi‐Scale Modeling in Nanostructured Materials in Track 9, organized by Hassan Mahfuz and
Leif Carlsson and sponsored by AMD

2. Structural Polymeric Nanocomposites: Synthesis and Performance Evaluation in Track 9,
organized by Mahesh Hosur and Shaik Zainuddin and sponsored by AMD

3. Materials & Meta‐Materials at Varying Length Scales and Frequency Ranges in Track 9,
organized by Emmanuel Ayorinde, Joon Sang Lee, and Gary Witus and sponsored by AMD

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4. Composite Materials for Renewable Energy Systems in Track 9, organized by Hassan Mahfuz
and David Miller and sponsored by AMD

5. Graphene Based Multifunctional Nanocomposites: Theory vs. Experiment in Track 9, organized
by Kyriaki Kalaitzidou and sponsored by AMD

6. Effects of Environmental Aging on Properties of Advanced Materials in Track 9, organized by
Mohammad Kamal Hossain and Shaik Zainuddin and sponsored by AMD and MD

7. Green and Biocompatible Nanocomposites in Track 9, organized by Mohammad Kamal Hossain
and Nazmul Islam and co‐sponsored by AMD and MD

8. Multifunctional and Nanostructured Materials – Modeling and Characterization in Track 9,
organized by Xin‐Lin Gao and Jaehyung Ju and co‐sponsored by AMD and MD

9. Novel Approaches in Heterogeneous Materials Analysis and Characterization in Track 9,
organized by Assimina Pelegri, Valeria Saponara and Yu Su and co‐sponsored by AMD and MD

10. Mechanics of Composite Structures and Health Monitoring Sensors in Track 9, organized by
Valeria Saponara and Massimo Ruzzene and co‐sponsored by AMD and MD

11. Multi‐scale Mechanics of Composites with Coupled Mechanical and Non‐mechanical Behaviors
in Track 9, organized by Anastasia Muliana, Vikas Tomar, Rani El‐Hajjar, Valeria Saponara and
Massimo Ruzzene and co‐sponsored by AMD and MD

12. Nanocomposites in Track 9, organized by Mrinal Saha, Hassan Mahfuz and Davood Askari and
co‐sponsored by AMD and MD

13. Nano‐engineered Materials for Energy Applications in Track 9, organized by Gobinda Saha and
co‐sponsored by AMD and MD

14. Fracture, Defects Certification and Repair of Composites in Track 9, organized by Naveen
Rastogi and sponsored by AMD

15. Mechanics of Composite Materials for Power Applications in Track 9, organized by Ioannis
Chasiotis, Kyriaki Kalaitzidou, and Antonia Antoniou and sponsored by AMD

16. Bioinspired Materials in Track 9, organized by Philippe Geubelle, Kyriaki Kalaitzidou, and
Antonia Antoniou and sponsored by AMD


The meeting was adjourned at 2:15 PM.

Hassan Mahfuz, Chair
[email protected]




Dynamics and Control of Systems and Structures Committee

At the upcoming ASME IMECE 2012, Albert Luo, Dumitru Caruntu, and Liming Dai are the
organizers of Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, and Ahmed Al‐Jumaily the Organizer of
Track 2 Biomedical and Biotechnology. DCSS committee members organized 11 symposia totaling a
number of 188 papers and 33 sessions at the upcoming ASME IMECE 2012 as follows.

Dumitru I. Caruntu, Marco Amabili, and Bogdan Epureanu, organized 3 symposia spread over 2
tracks and 11 sessions and totaling 60 papers: (a) Symposium on Dynamics and Control of
Biomechanical Systems, Track 2 Biomedical and Biotechnology Engineering, Organizers: Dumitru I.
Caruntu, Bogdan Epureanu, (b) Symposium on Nonlinear Dynamics, Control, and Stochastic
Mechanics, Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizers: Marco Amabili, Bogdan
Epureanu, and Dumitru I. Caruntu, (c) and Symposium on Dynamics and Control in Micro/Nano

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Engineering, Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizers: Dumitru I. Caruntu, Bogdan
Epureanu, and Marco Amabili.

Ahmed Al‐Jumaily, Albert Luo, Hamid Hamidzadeh, Liming Dai, Matthew Brake, Andrew Dick,
Ioannis Georgiou, Annie Tangpong, organized 8 symposia, in Track 2 and Track 4 spread over 22
sessions totaling a number of 128 papers: (a) Symposium on Vibration and Acoustics in Biomedical
Applications, Track 2 Biomedical and Biotechnology Engineering, Organizer: Ahmed Al‐Jumaily, (b)
Symposium on Dynamics and Vibration for Design, Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty,
Organizers: Annie Tangpong, Matthew Brake, (c) Symposium on Chaos, Complexity and
Synchronization in Dynamical Systems, Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizers:
Albert Luo, Hamid Hamidzadeh, (d) Symposium on Optimal Approaches in Nonlinear Dynamics and
Acoustics, Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizer: Liming Dai, (e) Symposium on
Impact Dynamics and Mechanics, Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizer: Matthew
Brake, (f) Symposium on Modeling for Control, Diagnostics & Prognostics of Systems, Track 4
Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizer: Ioannis Georgiou, (g) Symposium on Controls
Theory and Application, Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizers: Matthew Brake,
Andrew Dick, Annie Tangpong, (h) Symposium on Dynamics Modeling, Theory, and Application,
Track 4 Dynamics, Control, and Uncertainty, Organizers: Matthew Brake, Annie Tangpong.

Dumitru I. Caruntu, Chair
[email protected]




Experimental Mechanics Committee

The Experimental Mechanics Technical Committee met on Nov. 14, 2011 in Denver, Colorado. The
meeting was chaired by Prof. Junlan Wang, University of Washington. The secretary, Dr. Frank
Delrio from National Institute of Standard and Technology, started his two year terms till June
2013. The meeting was attended by Prof. Rani El‐Hajjar (University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee),
Antonia Antoniou (Georgia Institute of Technology), Nanshu Lu (University of Texas‐ Austin),
Sergey Kurywtsev (Kazan State Technical University). We discussed the symposia which were held
in Denver:
Modeling and Experiments in Nanomechanics and Nanomaterials
Organizers: Yozo Mikata (Lockheed Martin) and Jeff Kysar (Columbia University)
Constitutive and Failure Response of Thin Films and Multilayered Structures
Organizers: Junlan Wang, Philippe Geubelle (UIUC), Jizhou Song (U. Miami), Frank DelRio
Co‐sponsorship with AMD Elasticity committee and Fracture and Failure Mechanics committee

In collaboration with several other technical committees (TC), we proposed the following symposia
for 2012 ASME IMECE in Houston, TX:
Modeling and Experiments in Nanomechanics and Nanomaterials
Yozo Mikata and Jeff Kysar
Mechanics of Thin Films and Multilayered Structures
Junlan Wang, Jizhou Song AMD Elasticity TC), and Philippe Geubelle (AMD Fracture and Failure TC)
Mechanical Behavior of Composites with Coupled Mechanical and Non‐mechanical behavior
Rani El‐Hajjar
Nanotribology of thin films
Frank DelRio, Yong Zhu
Co‐sponsorship with Materials Division Multifunctional Materials TC

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The next committee meeting will be held in Houston. We look forward to seeing everyone and
hearing new proposals for symposia at future conferences. We will also elect a new secretary
whose term starts in July 2013.

Junlan Wang, Chair
[email protected]






Committee on Fluid‐Structure Interaction

Yet another successful year for the Committee on Fluid‐‐Structure Interaction (CFSI). We focused
on the following activities:


CFSI organized the following workshops and mini symposia at international conferences:

1. Mini symposium on Fluid‐‐Structure Interaction at the International Conference on

Computational Methods in Marine Engineering (Marine 2011) held in Lisbon in September
2011.
2. FSI Workshop held at the University of Tokyo in March 2011.

The workshop and mini symposia speakers included leading US and international computational
mechanics researchers.
CFSI started a new activity this year. Together with Prof. Tayfun Tezduyar (former Chair of the AMD
Executive Committee and CFSI) we developed a short course on Computational Fluid Mechanics
and Fluid‐‐Structure Interaction. The course is targeted toward advanced graduate students,
postdocs, and national lab and industry researchers. A short version of the course was offered for
the first time as a part of the FSI Workshop held at the University of Tokyo. A two‐week version of
the short course was offered in June 2011 at the University of Rome III, with participation form
Profs. Rispoli and Corsini, who are leading researchers in computational turbomachinery
applications. We have plans to continue offering the short course on an annual or semi‐annual
basis. More details on the short course may be found at the following links:

http://save.sys.t.u‐tokyo.ac.jp/LecFSI12/
http://www.tafsm.org/RCFMFSI/

Together with Prof. Tezduyar the CFSI Chairs edited two special issues on Computational Fluid
Mechanics and Fluid‐‐Structure Interaction in leading international archival journals,
Computational Mechanics and Journal of Applied Mechanics. The special issue articles are found at
the following links:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/0178‐7675/48/3/
http://asmedl.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=JAMCAV&Volume=79&Issue=1

Together with Prof. Tezduyar the CFSI Chairs are organizing ACM 2013, a conference celebrating
the 70th birthday of Prof. Thomas J.R. Hughes. ACM 2013, to be held in San Diego, CA on February
24‐27, 2013, will attract a large number of US and international participants who are leading
researchers in computational mechanics. The birthday conference will accommodate the

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International Conference on Finite Elements in Flow Problems (FEF) as a special track. More details
are found at the following link: http://th70.tafsm.org/frontal/default.asp


Yuri Bazilevs, Chair
[email protected]
Kenji Takizawa, Co‐Chair
[email protected]





Technical Committee on Integrated Structures

Chair: Teng Li (University of Maryland)
Co‐chair: Nathan Wicks (Schlumberger Inc.)
Secretary: Nanshu Lu (University of Texas at Austin)
Committee members: Rui Huang (University of Texas at Austin), Jun He (Intel Inc.), Xiaohu Liu (IBM
Inc.), Vivek Shenoy (Brown University), Sulin Zhang (Penn State University)


In the past year, the Technical Committee (TC) on Integrated Structures in the Applied Mechanics
Division of ASME has continued our tradition to build a stronger and diversified community by
integrating scholars and researchers from both academia and industry. We would like to take the
chance to thank Dr. Jun He from Intel Inc. for his outstanding service and leadership to our
committee as Co‐chair from industry since 2006. At the upcoming 2012 IMECE in Houston, we will
welcome Dr. Nathan Wicks from Schlumberger Inc. to serve as the new Co‐chair from industry, and
Dr. Nanshu Lu from the University of Texas at Austin to serve as the Secretary of our committee.

Our TC continues to work hard and build momentum through organizing symposia and sessions at
national and international conferences. At IMECE 2011, our TC organized a topic area in Mechanics
of Integrated Structures and Materials in Advanced Technologies (Topic 12‐34) with five sessions
in the Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Fluids track. Our symposium featured three keynote talks
by Prof. Zhigang Suo (Harvard University), Prof. Huajian Gao (Brown University) and Prof. Ganesh
Subbarayan (Purdue University). At the 2011 ASME Applied Mechanics and Materials Conference
(McMAT), our TC organized a symposium on low dimension carbon nanomaterials with five
sessions, featuring keynote presentations by Prof. Boris I. Yakobson (Rice University), Prof.
Yonggang Huang (Northwestern University), Prof. Vivek Shenoy (Brown University) and Prof. Ju Li
(University of Pennsylvania). For upcoming conferences, our TC continues our tradition to organize
a seven‐session symposium on Mechanics of Integrated Structures and Materials in Advanced
Technologies at IMECE 2012 (Topic 9‐35). The committee members who have participated the
session organization are: Nathan Wicks, Teng Li, Rui Huang, Sulin Zhang, Nanshu Lu, and Xiaohu
Liu. Topics of interests include, but not limited to the following areas: Mechanics and materials in
energy systems, low‐dimensional carbon materials, flexible and stretchable electronics,
microelectronics, electronic and photonic packaging, MEMS/NEMS, and biological and bio‐inspired
materials and structures. Our symposium at IMECE 2012 will feature five keynote talks by Prof.
Robert McMeeking (UCSB), Prof. Jianming Qu (Northwestern University), Prof. Boris I. Yakobson
(Rice University), Prof. John Rogers (UIUC) and Dr. Xiaopeng Xu (Synopsys, Inc.). The committee
chair Teng Li is also co‐organizing the Symposium in honor of the recipient of the Prager Medal

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(Zhigang Suo) at the 49th Annual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science
(SES2012) to be held at Georgia Institute of Technology in Oct. 2012.
We would like to thank our colleagues and friends who have contributed to our TC in the past years
and we would like to encourage more members of the Applied Mechanics community to participate
in the activities of the Integrated Structures Technical Committee as well as providing suggestions
and help.

Teng Li, Chair
[email protected]
Nathan Wicks, Co‐chair
[email protected]
Nanshu Lu, Secretary
[email protected]




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