The American Academy of Mechanics has elected two University of Texas at Austin professors to serve as officers during 2006. Dr. Stelios Kyriakides will be the organization’s president, and Dr. Ken Liechti will serve as Secretary of the Fellows.
The Academy advances the science and profession of mechanics, which includes disciplines involved in the modeling and study of the response of matter to forces and environmental effects. The Academy encourages interaction between researchers in the U.S., Canada and South American countries.
Kyriakides is the Temple Foundation Endowed Professor No. 1 in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, and directs the Center for Research in Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Materials. He conducts research to understand the behavior of solid materials and structures, concentrating on the causes of instabilities in the materials at the structural, micro- and nano- scales. For example, he studied plastic buckling and crushing of structures used in the oil and gas industry, and researched problems with forming materials for automotive manufacturing.
Liechti, an aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics professor, holds the E.P. Schoch Professorship in Engineering. He researches adhesive bonds and composite materials used in various products including airplanes, joints in automobiles, and multi-layered structures in microelectronic devices. Liechti uses mathematical models to study the deformation and failure of these materials, and how cracks form in the joints between materials.
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