Loading AI tools
Czech-American civil engineer (born 1937) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zdeněk Pavel Bažant (born December 10, 1937) is McCormick School Professor and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Civil Engineering and Materials Science in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University's Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.[1][2]
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Zdeněk P. Bažant | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 10, 1937 |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation(s) | professor, engineer, scientist |
| Employer | Northwestern University |
| Awards | |
| Website | www |
Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on December 10, 1937, Bažant received the degree of Civil Engineer from the Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague in 1960. While employed as Bridge Designer he earned in 1963 (as an external student) a PhD in engineering mechanics from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences; in 1966, he earned a postgraduate diploma in theoretical physics from Charles University, Prague. During 1964–67 he was research assistant professor at CTU working on fiber composites, and obtained the degree of Docent habilitatis in Concrete Structures from CTU in 1967.[3] After postdoctoral fellowship at CEBTP Paris (1966–67) and Ford Foundation fellowship at University of Toronto (1967–68), he was during 1968–69 Associate Research Engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, he decided not to return home and in 1969 he joined Northwestern University as an Associate Professor.
At Northwestern University, Bažant became Professor of Civil Engineering in 1973. During 1981–87 he served as the founding Director of Center for Geomaterials. During 1974-1994 he was simultaneously a Staff Consultant at Argonne National Laboratory. Since 1990, he has held the Walter P. Murphy Chair in Civil and Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, and since 2002 simultaneously the chair of McCormick Institute Professor. Bažant served as the president of the Society of Engineering Science (1993); was the founding President (1991–93) of the International Association of Fracture Mechanics of Concrete Structures (IA-FRAMCOS); and the founding President (2001–2002) of the International Association of Concrete Creep and Durability Mechanics (IA-CONCREEP).[2] He served as Division Director in IA-SMiRT (Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology), as member of the U. S. National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, and as editor-in-chief of Journal of Engineering Mechanics of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He has been the US regional editor of International Journal of Fracture.
Bažant, who is "generally regarded as the world leader in research on scaling in the mechanics of solids",[2] is the author of nine books dealing with concrete creep, stability of structures, fracture and size effect, inelastic analysis, scaling of structural strength and probabilistic mechanics of quasi-brittle structures. His size effect law (1984) is incorporated into shear design provisions of ACI Standard 318 (2019).[4] His size effect method for measuring fracture energy and process zone size in concrete became RILEM Standard Recommendation in 1990. His B3 and B4 prediction models for concrete creep and shrinkage became RILEM Standard Recommendation in 1995 and 2015.[5] His nonlinear diffusion model for moisture in concrete is part of European Model Code. His AAAM procedure is part of Standard recommendation of ACI and Model Code.[4] His microplane model for material damage and his crack band model for fracture have been widely adopted in civil engineering industry, for impact analysis, and for fracture assessment of large composite airframes. His exponential algorithm became standard in creep analysis of concrete nuclear containments. His invention of gap test is impacting fracture mechanics. His invention of finite chain statistics and fishnet probability distribution is impacting statistical strength predictions. He is an Illinois registered Structural Engineer, and is one of the original top 100 ISI highly cited researchers in engineering (of all fields, worldwide). As of May 2024, his h-index according to Google Scholar is 151, i10-index 709, and total citations 95,868.[6] In 2019 Stanford Univ. citation survey of >250,000 engineering authors (weighted for first and last author and number of co-authors, filtered for reciprocal citations and citation farms), he was ranked worldwide no.1 in civil engineering and no.2 in engineering of all fields;[7][8] ditto in a similar survey by Elsevier in 2022.
Bažant was elected to US National Academy of Sciences in 2002,[9] US National Academy of Engineering in 1996,[10] and American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.[11] He is a foreign member of the Royal Society of London (2015), Austrian Academy of Sciences,[12] Academy of Engrg. of Czech Rep., Italian National Academy (dei Lincei, Rome),[13] Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering, Academy of Athens, First Section (2017),[14] Indian National Academy of Engineering,[15] Engineering Academy of Japan, Turin Academy, Istituto Lombardo, Milan (2002),[16] Academia Europaea (London) (2014),[17] and European Academy of Science and Arts.[18] His honors include 9 honorary doctorates: CTU Prague (1991), TU Karlsruhe (Fredericiana, 1997), CU Boulder (2000), Politecnico di Milano (2001), INSA Lyon (2004), TU Vienna (2006), Ohio State University Columbus (2011), University of Minnesota (2013) and UPPA Bayonne-Anglet (2013). He is an honorary member of Am. Soc. of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Am. Soc. of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Am. Concrete Institute (ACI),[19] RILEM, Paris (Int. Union of Res. Lab. In Mat. & Str.), Czech Soc. of Mechanics, Czech Soc. of Civil Engineers, Czech Concrete Society, and Building Res. Institute of Spain. His honors include:
In 2023, ASME created Zdenek P Bažant Medal for Contributions to Mechanics. In 2015, ASCE established "Zdenek P. Bazant Medal for Failure and Damage Prevention"[41] In 2011, Czech Society for Mechanics[42] established " Z.P. Bazant Prize for Engineering Mechanics"[43]
PATENTS: 5, including 1959 Safety Ski Binding, Czechoslovakia (exhibited in New England Ski Museum, Franconia, NH)
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
