Ali H. Nayfeh

Ali Hasan Nayfeh (21 December 1933 – 27 March 2017)[1] was a Palestinian-Jordanian mathematician, mechanical engineer and physicist.[2] He is regarded as the most influential scholar and scientist in the area of applied nonlinear dynamics in mechanics and engineering.[3] He was the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award,[4] and was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in mechanical engineering. His pioneering work in nonlinear dynamics has been influential in the construction and maintenance of machines and structures that are common in daily life, such as ships, cranes, bridges, buildings, skyscrapers, jet engines, rocket engines, aircraft and spacecraft.

Ali Hasan Nayfeh
Born(1933-12-21)21 December 1933
Tulkarm, Mandatory Palestine
Died27 March 2017(2017-03-27) (aged 83)
NationalityJordanian
Palestinian
Alma materStanford University
AwardsThomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award (2008)
Benjamin Franklin Medal in Mechanical Engineering (2014)
Scientific career
FieldsAerodynamics, structural dynamics, perturbation methods, nonlinear dynamics, aeroelasticity, nonlinear control, MEMS, NEMS, and chaos theory
ThesisGeneralized Method for Treating Singular Perturbation Problems (1964)
Doctoral advisorMilton Van Dyke

Biography

Ali Hasan Nayfeh was born on 21 December 1933, in the neighborhood of Shweikeh in Tulkarem city, in Mandatory Palestine.[1] He was born to an illiterate and poor Palestinian family, who encouraged him to acquire education and the maximum possible education. He worked as a mathematics teacher at towns and villages in Jordan for ten years, up until he won a scholarship at the age of 26 to study at Stanford University in the United States.[3]

Nayfeh received his B.S. with great distinction in engineering science (1962) and his M.S. (1963) and PhD (1964) in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University. He was a University Distinguished Professor of engineering at Virginia Tech since 1976. He was a volunteer at the University of Jordan. He was the editor-in-chief of Nonlinear Dynamics. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Vibration and Control from 1995 until his resignation in May 2014, shortly after he had uncovered a fraudulent peer-review ring.[5]

He held honorary doctorates from Marine Technical University (Russia), Technical University of Munich (Germany), and Politechnika Szczecińska (Poland).

He died on 27 March 2017.[1]

Contributions

In a career spanning four decades, he made important contributions to a number of fields, including perturbation techniques, nonlinear oscillations, aerodynamics, flight mechanics, acoustics, ship motions, hydrodynamic stability, nonlinear waves, structural dynamics, experimental dynamics, linear and nonlinear control, and micromechanics,[3] and fluid dynamics.[2] He authored over a thousand publications, which have collectively been cited at least 43,364 times by other scholars, as of 2017. His contributions have had a significant influence on the lives of many people.[2]

His contributions in nonlinear dynamics have had an impact on numerous practical applications, including devices, structures and systems that are common in daily life. His pioneering work in nonlinear dynamics, mainly focused on finding stability and predictability in what may appear to be chaos, has been influential and widely adopted by various industries for the construction and maintenance of safe, reliable machines and structures, such as ships, cranes, bridges, buildings, skyscrapers, jet engines, rocket engines, aircraft and spacecraft.[6]

Professional memberships

Nayfeh was a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Design and Process Science, and the American Academy of Mechanics.

Awards

Nayfeh received the Pendray Aerospace Literature Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1995; the J. P. Den Hartog Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1997; the Frank J. Maher Award for Excellence in Engineering Education in 1997; the Lyapunov Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2005; the Virginia Academy of Science's Life Achievement in Science Award in 2005; the Gold Medal of Honor from the Academy of Trans-Disciplinary Learning and Advanced Studies in 2007; and the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award in 2008. In 2014, Nayfeh was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in mechanical engineering.[7]

Publications

Books
  • Ali H. Nayfeh, Dean T. Mook (1979). Nonlinear Oscillations. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Ali H. Nayfeh (1993). The Method of Normal Forms. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Ali H. Nayfeh (1993). Introduction to Perturbation Techniques. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Ali H. Nayfeh, Balakumar Balachandran (1995). Applied Nonlinear Dynamics: Analytical, Computational and Experimental Methods. John Wiley & Sons. Bibcode:1995anda.book.....N.
  • Ali H. Nayfeh (2000). Perturbation methods. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Ali H. Nayfeh (2000). Nonlinear Interactions: Analytical, Computational, and Experimental Methods. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Ali H. Nayfeh, P. Frank Pai (2004). Linear and Nonlinear Structural Mechanics. John Wiley & Sons.
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References
  1. Corder, Erica. "In memoriam: Ali Nayfeh, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of nonlinear dynamics". Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
  2. Lacarbonara, Walter (21 July 2017). "Obituary: Professor Ali H. Nayfeh 21 December 1933–27 March 2017". Journal of Sound and Vibration. 400: 680–683. Bibcode:2017JSV...400..680L. doi:10.1016/j.jsv.2017.04.020. ISSN 0022-460X.
  3. Rega, Giuseppe (2019). "Tribute to Ali H. Nayfeh (1933-2017)". IUTAM Symposium on Exploiting Nonlinear Dynamics for Engineering Systems. Springer. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9783030236922.
  4. "Ali H. Nayfeh is the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award". iMechanica. 2008. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
  5. Barbash, Fred (2014-02-02). "Scholarly journal retracts 60 articles, smashes "peer review ring"". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2014-07-10.
  6. "Ali Hasan Nayfeh". Franklin Institute Awards. The Franklin Institute. 4 February 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
  7. "Press Room". Franklin Institute. Archived from the original on 2014-02-13. Retrieved 2013-12-03.
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