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ESIS Awards 2008

  • 2008
  • The Griffith Medal
  • The Wöhler Medal
  • Award of Merit
  • Honorary Membership

ESIS AWARDS

ESIS President Prof. Gdoutos and ECF17 Chaimen conferred the ESIS Awards during the Social Dinner: - Griffith Medal to Prof A. Carpinteri, “for his outstanding theoretical results achieved in the field of fracture mechanics and their successful applications, especially those devoted to the improvement of structural integrity in civil engineering”; - Wöhler Medal to Prof. C. M. Sonsino, “for his outstanding contributions to the field of fatigue, especially those devoted to the multiaxial- and variable amplitude loading”; - Award of Merit  to Prof. E. Gdoutos, “for his outstanding research in the field of fracture mechanics and for hiswork devoted to the advancement of the European Structural Integrity Society”; - Honorary Membership to Dr. R. A. Ainsworth, “for his outstanding contributions to the fields of fracture and structural integrity design as well as for his work devoted to the advancement of the European Structural Integrity Society”.

ESIS Awards conferred at ECF17 (from left): J. Pokluda (ECF17 Co-chaiman), C.M. Sonsino (Wohler Medal), E. Gdoutos (Award of Merit, ESIS President), A. Carpinteri (Griffith Medal), R.A. Ainsworth (Honorary Membership), P. Lukas (ECF17 Co-chaiman).
Professor Alberto Carpinteri


Alberto Carpinteri received two Ph.D degrees in Nuclear Engineering and Mathematics at the University of Bologna in 1976 and 1981, respectively. Since 1986 he is Professor of Structural Mechanics and, since 1990, he is a Founding Member and Director of the Graduate School in Structural Engineering at the Politecnico di Torino. He is author and/or co-author of more than 200 papers published in refereed journals on the following topics: fracture mechanics, material fatigue, thermoelasticity, seismic structures, reinforced concrete, structural monitoring and contact mechanics. He is author of two books and editor or guest-editor of another 24 books and journal special issues. Alberto received the Robert l'Hermite International Prize in 1982, the Medal of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1993, the International Cultural Diploma of Honor of the American Biographical Institute in 1995 and the WIT Eminent Scientist Award, Wessex, form the Institute of Technology, Southampton in 2000. He is also the Doctor of Physics Honoris Causa of the Constantinian University, Cranston-Rhode Island, USA, since 1994, the Honorary Professor, of the Nanjing Architectural & Civil Engineering Institute, Nanjing- China since 1996 and the Honorary Professor of the Albert Schweitzer University, Geneva-Switzerland in 2000. Alberto was the president of the European Structural Integrity Society (ESIS) in the years 2002 to 2006, of the International Association of Fracture Mechanics for Concrete and Concrete Structures in the years 2004 to 2007 and of the Italian Group of Fracture in the years1998 to 2005. He is now the Senior vice-president of the International Congress on Fracture. He is a member of many editorial boards of international scientific journals and was deeply involved in organization of several prominent international scientific conferences. You will certainly remember him as a chairman of the organizing committee of the ICF11 conference in Torino in 2005.
Professor C.M. Sonsino


 		After his studies of mechanical engineering at the Technical University Darmstadt, Morris Sonsino started his carrier in the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF in Darmstadt/Germany as research engineer in 1973. He received his PhD-degree from the Technical University Darmstadt for his work on cold forming and low-cycle fatigue of steels and aluminium alloys. Nowadays, he is Professor of structural durability at both the Technical University Darmstadt and the Saarland University. He is also a deputy director of the LBF, head of its business unit Automotive and Commercial Vehicles, and the chairman of the Working Group for Structural Durability of the German Society of Materials Research and Testing. The main professional fields of Morris are variable amplitude fatigue, low-cycle fatigue, corrosion fatigue, design development and fatigue life evaluation of welded, cast, forged, sintered and fibre reinforced plastic components under service loading. Especially, he developed an integral strength hypotheses for assessing multiaxial local strain/stress states in not welded as well as welded components of steels and aluminium alloys. Morris is author and co-author of more than 350 papers and 4 books on local concepts for fatigue design of welded joints and powder metallurgy parts. The new fatigue design recommendations of the International Institute of Welding (IIW) for assessing welded structures adopted 2006/2007 the suggestions resulting from the multiaxial fatigue work of C.M. Sonsino with regard to material distinction (steel, aluminium) and consideration of proportional (constant principal strain /stress directions) and non-proportional (changing principal directions). The simplification of this very complex subject for application by non-experts was also extended by him to multiaxial variable amplitude loading. (The IIW-Recommendation is supposed to substitute the Eurocode 3 in due course.)
Professor E. Gdoutos


Emmanuel E. Gdoutos received M.S. and Ph.D. from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. He is Professor of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and Director of the Laboratory of Applied Mechanics at the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, and Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University. His interests and experience include many areas of mechanics of materials with emphasis on experimental mechanics, fracture mechanics, composite materials and nanotechnology. He authored over 240 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings, 15 books and edited 13 books. Nine of his books refer to fracture mechanics. Emmanuel is Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens, the most prestigious academic institute in Greece, member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Society of Experimental Mechanics, the American Academy of Mechanics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Honorary Member of the Italian Group of Fracture. He is editor-in-chief of “Strain – An International Journal for Experimental Mechanics,” President of the European Structural Integrity Society, and the Greek Group of Fracture. He served as Chairman of the European Association for Experimental Mechanics. He is the member of the editorial board of eight international journals and guest editor of seven special issues of international journals. He has awarded two Fulbright fellowships and an excellent teaching award from the University of Toledo. And, finally, he chaired many conferences in theoretical and applied mechanics including the 16th European Conference of Fracture and the 13th International Conference on Experimental Mechanics.
Dr. R.A. Ainsworth


Bob Ainsworth has worked for over 30 years in the UK power generation industry. For a number of years he was a Group Head within the Engineering Division of British Energy, one of the successor companies following the reorganisation of the UK electricity generating industry. Currently, he is the Research Co-ordinator for British Energy. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a Visiting Professor at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Pressure Vessels & Piping. As far as scientific and engineering activities concerns, Bob has performed research on the structural integrity of steel components with particular emphasis on development of practical assessment procedures. The procedures have become known as R5 and R6, which address high temperature components and defective components, respectively. R5 and R6 have become the UK nuclear industry standards for structural integrity assessment. The approaches have also been embodied in national and international codes such as the British Standard BS7910, the European procedures SINTAP and FITNET and the API/ASME Fitness-for-Service Standard. Let me finally emphasize that Bob chaired the creep working group within the FITNET consortium.

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