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Faculty Affiliates |
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Zdenek P. Bazant Zdenek P. Bazant (Ph.D., Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague, Structural Mechanics), Walter P. Murphy Professor of Civil Engineering. Bazant’s current investigations include some rather fundamental problems in the field of quasibrittle fracture and damage mechanics, interfaces with chemo-mechanics, chemical reaction kinetics, diffusion, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, problems of scaling and asymptotic properties of all these phenomena, and structural reliability. His research team is developing material models for composite materials, concrete, rocks and soils, sea ice, tough ceramics, sandwich shells, cellular materials and shape memory alloys. The research deals with various basic problems in applications to durability of structures, size effects in engineered structures and in geo-mechanics, impact, blast and earthquake effects, ship structures, arctic engineering, etc. Although the emphasis is theoretical, his team conducts some specialized fracture testing of composites, concretes and rocks as well, and works also on the design implications of theoretical results. The sponsors of Bazant's current and recent research include NSF, DoE, ONR, WES, ARO, DoT, Sandia N.L., and Argonne N.L. His honors and awards include: Member, National Academy of Engineering, Washington, DC; Honorary Doctorates from University of Colorado, Karlsruhe University (Germany), and Czech Technical University Prague; Foreign Member, Austrian Academy of Sciences and Academy of Engineering of Czech Republic; Prager Medal from Society of Engineering Sciences; Warner Medal from American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Bazant was a visiting scientist at the Centre d'études de bâtiment et des travaux publics and a visiting profesor at the Institut nationa des sciences appliquées, Lyon-Villeurbane and the ENS, Paris-Cachan. |
