Blast Mitigation Strategies in Marine Composite and Sandwich Structures

Prof. S. Gopalakrishnan

Prof. Gopalakrishnan received his Master's degree in Engineering Mechanics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and PhD from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics from Purdue University. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the department of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently the chairperson of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Science. His main areas of interest are wave propagation in complex media, computational mechanics, smart structures, structural health monitoring, MEMS and Nano composite structures.Prof. Gopalakrishnan has extensively published his work, including 182 international journal papers, six graduate-level textbooks, and two undergraduate books. He is on the editorial board of nine international journals and is the associate editor of Smart Materials and Structures and Structural Health Monitoring. Prof. Gopalakrishnan has received numerous awards and honors, including Structural Health Monitoring person of the year award 2016, Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, Associate Fellow-AIAA, Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai, Satish Dhawan Young Scientist Award by Government of Karnataka, Alumni Award of excellence in research at IISc and the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK Distinguished Visiting Fellowship. Prof. Gopalakrishnan is one of the most highly cited Aerospace researchers in the world. Prof. Gopalakrishnan was the head of the Aerospace Project Assessment and Review Committee of The National Programme of Micro and Smart Systems (NPMASS), DRDO, Government of India, and member of the Structures panel of the Aeronautical Research & Development Board, Government of India. He is currently the president of Institute for Smart Structures and Systems. He has attracted research funding from top aerospace companies, including Boeing Aircraft Company, Pratt & Whitney Corporation, USA, Office of Navel research, USA, Air force office for Advanced Research, Tokyo, and the Aeronautical Research and Development Board.

Dr. Yapa Rajapakse

Dr. Yapa Rajapakse is the program manager of the Solid Mechanics Program at the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The current focus of this research program is the thermo-mechanical behavior of composite materials and composite sandwich structures in severe marine environments (in the presence of high levels of humidity, sea water, hydrostatic pressure, dynamic loading, and temperature extremes). Dr. Rajapakse completed his graduate studies at Stanford University, receiving a M.S. degree in Mathematics, and a Ph.D. degree in Applied Mechanics. His doctoral dissertation in the area of fracture mechanics was supervised by the late Prof. J.N . Goodier.

He has been elected a fellow of four technical societies: the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the AmericanAcademy of Mechanics (AAM), the Society of Engineering Science (SES), and the American Society for Composites (ASC). He has served as president, vice-president, and member of the board of directors of the SES. He was also chairman of the Composites Committee, Applied Mechanics Division of ASME, and the Polymer Matrix Composites Division of ASC. Dr. Rajapakse has served on the editorial boards of several journals, including Composite Science and Technology, the Journal of Sandwich Structures and Materials, the Journal of Composite Materials, the Journal of Reinforced Plastics & Composites, Composites Part B, Engineering Fracture Mechanics, and the International Journal of Plasticity.

He has delivered numerous presentations at national/international conferences. He is the editor/co-editor of 32 books including the recently published "Dynamic Failure of Materials and Structures," "Dynamic Failure of Composite and Sandwich Structures," "Blast Mitigation: Experimental and Numerical Studies," and "Durability of Composites in a Marine Environment."