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Chandra Desai
Chandra Desai

Engineering Society Confers Unique Recognition on Regents’ Professor Desai

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Engineering Society Confers Unique Recognition on Regents’ Professor Desai

April 7, 2009
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Regents’ Professor Chandra Desai has been awarded the 2009 Nathan M. Newmark Medal by the Structural Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Institutes of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

In 2008, Chandra Desai was selected by the ASCE’s Geo-Institute to receive the 2007 Karl Terzaghi Award.

Desai has the unique honor of receiving both awards, which are among the most prestigious at the ASCE. These awards reflect the multidisciplinary nature of Desai’s outstanding and seminal work and its application in the fields of geomechanics, and structural and engineering mechanics.

On receiving the award, Desai said: “I am very pleased that the American Society of Civil Engineers has chosen me to receive the 2009 Newmark Medal and the 2007 Terzaghi Award. About two decades ago at the University of Arizona, we initiated and pursued interdisciplinary mechanics applied to various areas in engineering, such as geomechanics and structural mechanics, because they strengthen the scientific base of geotechnical and structural engineering.”

Desai added: “I am also glad that these recognitions have been awarded for the first time to a faculty member at any university in Arizona.”

The Newmark Medal citation reads: “For outstanding and seminal contributions for development and application of new constitutive models, laboratory test devices, and computational methods in geomechanics, structural mechanics and other area in engineering.” The selection committee also noted Desai’s success in the area of computational mechanics, with emphasis on the finite element and finite difference methods, and material modeling.

Profile of Professor Desai -- Researcher and Engineer

In 1959, Chandrakant S. Desai, a young man from a small village in Gujarat, India, graduated from the University of Bombay’s Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.

Fifty years later, Regents’ Professor Chandrakant S. Desai of the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics is the recipient of accolades and awards from around the globe. He received his master’s degree from Rice University in Houston in 1966, and his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 1968.

In addition to the Newmark and Terzaghi awards recently awarded by the ASCE, Professor Desai has received wide recognition in diverse areas.

The Indian Geotechnical Society, founded in 1948, recently awarded Desai its Diamond Jubilee Honour for significant contributions in research and professional practice. The award was made during the inauguration of the 2008 Indian Geotechnical Conference at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, on Dec. 17, 2008.

Another honor from Desai’s native country comes from the Nonresident Indian Welfare Society, New Delhi, which has selected him to receive the Hind Rattan Award. Hind Rattan is Hindi for “Jewel of India.” This private but influential society makes the award to members of the Indian diaspora for outstanding services, achievements and contributions. Although Desai could not attend, the award ceremony took place at the society’s 28th international congress in India’s capital, New Delhi, on Jan. 25, the eve of India’s Republic Day.

The Slovenian Geotechnical Society recently awarded Desai the Suklje Award for outstanding research and professional contributions. The award is named for Professor Lujo Šuklje, an internationally prominent researcher and practitioner in geotechnical engineering and geomechanics who was nominated the first honorary member of the Slovenian Geotechnical Society in 1992. Šuklje died in 1997. As part of the award, Desai will travel to Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September 2009 to deliver the Šuklje lecture at the society’s annual conference.

Desai gave another lecture closer to home in February 2009. He was invited to give a Paul Fraser Kent Distinguished Lecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The Kent Distinguished Lecture Series was established by UIUC’s civil engineering department in 2007 to honor outstanding leadership in the field of transportation engineering. Paul Kent was a 1920 civil engineering graduate of the University of Illinois.

In presenting the Terzaghi Award, the ASCE’s Geo-Institute particularly noted Desai’s pioneering and lifelong contributions to the application of numerical methods and constitutive modeling to geomechanics. Karl Terzaghi (1883–1963) is known as the father of soil mechanics because, with the publication of Erdbaumechanik in 1925, he was the first to develop a comprehensive mechanics of soils.

Desai has authored or coauthored more than 300 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings, 20 textbooks and edited volumes, and 19 book chapters. Because of the fundamental nature of his work related to computer methods and constitutive modeling, his textbooks and research papers are used in other engineering disciplines such as mechanical, aerospace and mining engineering. Desai’s research in constitutive modeling for geomaterials has found applications in areas such as failure and reliability of microchip substrate systems in electronic packaging, and the movement of ice sheets on glacial tills, which influence global warming and climate change.

Desai’s contributions have involved participation by about 50 doctoral and 50 master’s students under his guidance. He was head of the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics from 1987 to 1991.

Desai’s outstanding and original contributions earned him in 1989 the title of Regents’ Professor at the University of Arizona. He has received the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation U.S. Scientist Prize from the German government; the Meritorious Civilian Service Award from the U.S. Corps of Engineers; the Outstanding Contribution Medal from the Czech Society of Mechanics of the Czech Academy of Sciences; the Outstanding Contributions Medal from the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics; the Clock Award for Outstanding Contributions to Mechanics and Thermal Sciences from the Electrical and Electronic Packaging Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; and the El Paso Natural Gas Foundation Faculty Achievement Award for teaching and scholarship at the University of Arizona.

Desai is the founding president of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics and founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Geomechanics, published by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

About Nathan Newmark

The Newmark Medal is named for Nathan Mortimore Newmark (1910-1981), a recipient of the National Medal of Science for engineering who graduated from Rutgers in 1930 with high honors and special honors in civil engineering. In 1932 and 1934 he received his master’s and doctoral degrees, respectively, in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He became research professor of civil engineering at UIUC in 1943, and served as chairman of the university’s Digital Computer Laboratory from 1947 to 1957. In 1956 he was appointed head of the Civil Engineering Department and held the position until 1973. He continued as a professor until he retired as professor emeritus. The civil engineering laboratory on the UIUC campus now bears his name.

Among Newmark’s achievements was the Torre Latinoamericana (Latin American Tower) in Mexico City, Mexico, the tallest building in Mexico City until 1984. Newmark was the consulting engineer on the project. He designed the building to be supported by the muddy soil underneath the structure and be able to withstand earthquakes. The design was put to the test in 1957 when an earthquake struck the city, and again in the stronger earthquake of 1985. The Torre Latinoamericana withstood the quakes and is still standing today as a witness of progress in earthquake engineering. He also developed the seismic design criteria for other large projects, including the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.