March 4, 2015
Professor Kenneth M. Liechti of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin was selected to receive the prestigious 2015 Adhesion Society Award for Excellence in Adhesion Science, sponsored by 3M. He was recognized for “fundamental contributions to our understanding of crack propagation at material interfaces.”
This is the Society’s premier award and is given for “outstanding achievements in scientific research relating to adhesion.” Criteria selection for the award include “a scientific contribution that has significantly improved our understanding of the phenomenon of adhesion, or a contribution to the technology of adhesion or adhesives that has had significant impact on the adhesion/adhesives industry” and “world-wide recognition of that achievement.”
The award was presented at the 38thAnnual Meeting of the Adhesion Society in Savannah, Georgia on February 22 during a special symposium dedicated to Liechti and his work. Four speakers, including Professor Kai-Tak Wan of Northeastern University, Dr. Dave Reedy of Sandia National Laboratories, Professor Kevin Turner of the University of Pennsylvania and Professor Rui Huang of The University of Texas at Austin, made reference to the impact of Liechti’s work during the symposium. These talks were followed by a lecture by Liechti titled "From Interfacial Fracture Mechanics to Adhesive Interactions."
Liechti's work is characterized by innovative and careful experiments, whose results are used to develop mechanics analyses of the phenomena being observed. This was emphasized in his symposium talk which developed the link between his early papers on fracture at bimaterial interfaces to more recent examinations of adhesive interactions between large area, two-dimensional materials (graphene, self-assembled monolayers, etc.) and bulk materials. The presentation highlighted some very recent work that deals with the selective, mechanical dry transfer of graphene, which holds promise for developing roll-to-roll manufacture of graphene.
Liechti has served on the Cockrell School of Engineering faculty since 1982. He has two and a half years of industrial experience and has published more than 80 technical articles. He is co-author of the book Mechanics of Materials with Marc Bedford. Liechti holds the Zarrow Centennial Professorship in Engineering and serves as Associate Director of the Center for Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Materials.
