Satya N. Atluri Wins the 2015 AIAA Walter J. and Angeline H. Chrichlow Trust Priz Written 13 November 2014

by Duane Hyland, AIAA Communications (2008-2017)

Satya N. Atluri, AIAA Fellow, and distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the Henry Samueli School Engineering, and director of the Center for Aerospace Research and Education at the University of California – Irvine, has been selected to receive the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ (AIAA) 2015 Walter J. and Angeline H. Crichlow Trust Prize. The $100,000 prize, presented every four years, honors excellence in aerospace materials, structural design, structural analysis or structural dynamics.

Atluri will receive the award at a noon awards luncheon on January 8, 2015, as part of the AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (AIAA SciTech 2015), January 5–9, at the Gaylord Palms Hotel & Convention Center, Kissimmee, Florida.

Atluri is being honored for his “lasting contributions to airframe structural integrity and durability analysis using novel computational methods (MLPG meshless methods) and micromechanics of materials genome.”

Atluri’s many contributions to the field of aerospace structural analysis include directing the nation’s first FAA Center of Excellence for Aging Aircraft from 1990 to 1998. Atluri also developed the Symmetric Galerkin Boundary Element Method (SGBEM)/FEM Schawrtz-Neumann Alternating Method for “estimating the structural longevity and integrity of aerospace structural components with cracks. His work on the SGBEM/FEM method also led to Atluri’s development of the AGILE 2D and AGILE 3D software programs used for predicting structural durability and fatigue. Atluri’s other accomplishments include championing the use of the T* criterion for mixed crack growth, which is especially useful in determining the fatigue factors in aerospace structures that contain a lot of plastic in their construction; his breakthrough contributions to solving inverse Cauchy problems, used in the detection of structural defects in hidden locations; and being one of the first researchers to develop analytical models for adaptive structures.

Among Atluri’s other honors are the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) 2012 Nadai Medal; the International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences’s (ICCES) 2003 Hilbert Medal; the FAA’s 1998 Excellence in Aerospace award; AIAA’s 1998 Pendray Aerospace Literature Award and the 1992 ICCES Gold Medal, and the 1988 AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamic & Materials Award. Alturi is a fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics, ASME, the Aeronautical Society of India, and the Chinese Society of Theoretical & Applied Mechanics.

Atluri has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering, the Indian National Academy of Engineering, and the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the Academy of Athens.

Atluri currently serves on the AIAA Journal’s advisory editorial board. He has also served as the editor of many publications including: Computational Mechanics, Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Computers, Materials & Continua; Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics; Structural Durability & Health Monitoring; Structural Longevity; and Advances in Computational Mechanics.