[October 2008] The IMechE present a number of different prizes every year, awarded for papers published by the Institution or contributions and achievements in the aerospace field.

The following prizes and awards were presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Aerospace Industries Division on 20 October 2008.



(From left to right) Darren Hartl, Frank Kirkland and Dr Lagoudas

William Sweet Smith Prize

This prize was awarded to a paper entitled “Aerospace applications of shape memory alloys” written by Darren Hartl and Dr Dimitris Lagoudas, it was published in the Journal of Aerospace Engineering, Volume 221 No. G4, for August 2007.

Shape memory alloys, that is metallic materials that have the property of recovering from seemingly permanent strains, are becoming increasingly of interest to aerospace engineers. This excellent review of such alloys, clearly describes the mechanism by which this property is demonstrated. A component manufactured from a shape memory alloy is both structural and active and when incorporated into a system can greatly reduce the complexity compared with standard technology.  This is of great importance to aerospace engineers in the drive to reduce weight and to increase compactness. The paper is a clear description of the current state of the art whilst critically assessing the challenges and future of shape memory alloys.

Both authors were available to attend the ceremony to collect their prize.

(from left to right) Frank Kirkland with Andrew Alderson

Kenneth Harris James

The winner of the Kenneth Harris James Prize “Auxetic materials” was co-written by Professor Andrew Alderson and Dr Kim Alderson, it was published in the Journal of Aerospace Engineering, Volume 221 No G4, for August 2007.

The citation reads: This contribution is of immense importance in bringing to the attention of aerospace designers a new class of materials with unique properties. The paper describes in a most clear fashion materials that possess the property of negative Poisson’s ratio. This means that when subject to a tensile load, for example, they expand in the lateral direction and under compression the lateral dimension reduces. The consequence is that as Poisson’s ratio tends towards -1, classical elasticity theory predicts that the shear modulus becomes infinitely large. Other properties also exhibit beneficial effects including indentation resistance, thermal shock resistance and fracture toughness. The paper demonstrates the mechanism by which this property is manifested for sandwich panels containing either honeycomb or foam, polymers and fibre reinforced composites. These properties may also be employed in sensors and actuator applications since they are high volume change materials.

(from left to right) Frank Kirkland and Dr Andreopoulos

Charles Sharpe Beecher

The winning paper entitled “Experimental techniques for the measurement of vorticity and strain rates in compressible turbulence interactions with shock or expansion waves”, by Dr Savvas Xanthos, Dr Minwei Gong, Dr Juan Agui and Dr Yiannis Andreopoulos, and published in the Journal of Aerospace Engineering Volume 221 No. G3”

This is an excellent paper with very detailed and very clear description of an extremely complex hot wire instrument containing 9 wires within approximately 2 mm resolution. Development, calibration and testing in a complex flow regime are described. Some of the data reported are the first ever on the interaction of shock and shear layer in compressible turbulence. There is no doubt that the work reports on engineering research and innovation of the highest quality.

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