to appear in Computational Mechanics In memory of ...

to appear in Computational Mechanics In memory of Mike Crisfield a distinguished researcher and good friend

Michael Anthony Crisfield, FEA Professor of Computational Mechanics in the Aeronautics Department at Imperial College died in London on February 19, 2002 after short battle against cancer. Mike was an internationally renowned expert on Computational Mechanics, a synthesis of engineering insight, advanced mathematical methods and computer science that has a broad field of applications within engineering analysis. Mike developed his interest in mathematics and science at Haileybury school. He graduated in civil engineering from Queen's University, Belfast, in 1965, receiving his doctorate for research in 1970 with a thesis entitled “Finite Element Analysis of Skew and Right Cellular Structures” at the same university. After a year in the bridge section of the Northern Ireland Ministry of Development, he moved 1971 to Camberley, Surrey, to work in the bridges division of the transport and road research laboratories (TRRL). During 19711989 he worked at TRRL in various positions in the Division of Bridge Analysis where he finally held the position of Deputy Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Structural Analysis Unit. Within this time period Mike was involved in the investigation of the strength of steel box-girder bridges following the collapse of Milford Haven Bridge. He also wrote many papers

which contained new approaches for collapse analysis in general, and moved later also to investigations regarding damage and cracking in concrete constructions. In 1989, he was appointed as first holder of the FEA chair in computational mechanics in the Aeronautics Department at Imperial College, London. Since 1998 he was Head of Structures Section of the same department. Here he warmed to the challenges of advanced aircraft structures, sometimes saying – with a retrospective view to his earlier carrier: “one could also build airplanes made of concrete as long as the engines are strong enough”. At Imperial College Mike’s areas of interest and expertise widened. He worked on topics such as nonlinear dynamics, general discretisation schemes for beam and shells undergoing finite deformations, large-strain analysis and carbon-fiber composite structures. Mike Crisfield rapidly built up an enthusiastic research team, which was financed by grants from EPSRC, the EU and Industry. He was devoted to his research, created excitement and presented results which attracted a great deal of interest. Besides the implementation of algorithms and new finite elements, Mike has written over one hundred and thirty scientific papers and reports. A major outcome of this work was one book on the finite element method and two books on nonlinear computational mechanics, the last two being landmarks, which are frequently read by graduate students and engineers who want to learn about nonlinear aspects in computational mechanics. Mike was a General Council Member of the International Association for Computational Mechanics, a past Chairman of the UK Association for Computational Mechanics in Engineering and a delegate of the British group to the former European Community for Computational Mechanics (ECCM). Mike was an extrovert, whose great enthusiasm left academic audiences breathless due to his stimulating lectures. He had a good sense of humor. I still remember when Mike gave a keynote lecture which followed a great multimedia presentation of another colleague. He started off by throwing three color pens on the overhead projector saying “this is my multi-media”. He played rugby scrum-half well into his 40s and was always in the team of the staff members in the yearly cricket match of the department at Imperial College. Besides sports, Mike had a passion for jazz and blues, his impromptu piano-playing performances brightened many conference dinners and evenings at hotel bars. Had he been a good enough jazz pianist to earn a living, he said, he would have foregone his academic career. Mike had a zest for life and was great fun to be around. Many of his friends had the luck to share long nights of general but also deep scientific discussions during many international conference at bars and dinners. Our friend and colleague Mike Crisfield is gone. The international community of computational mechanics has lost one of its most esteemed members. The acknowledgment of his scientific contributions through a great number of citations in the literature is a testament to the importance of Mike Crisfield’s

work and its lasting value. Our community has not only lost an outstanding researcher but also a wonderful man and good friend. He will be dearly missed. Mike Crisfield is survived by the three children of his first marriage, to Sarah, who died in 1977, and by his second wife, Kiki, their daughter, two stepdaughters and a stepson. Peter Wriggers, Hannover 2002