L. B. Freund
H. L. Goddard University Professor and Professor of Engineering:
Division of Engineering
Phone: +1 401 863 1476
freund@brown.edu
Freund's derivation of the equations describing the propagation of cracks in an elastic body has led to the understanding of dynamic fracture that is now widely used in such critically important applications as the safety of gas pile lines and the safety of nuclear containment vessels. Professor Freund's research is concerned with mechanical phenomena in solid materials, focusing on the relationship between the overall mechanical state of a deformable solid and the localized physical processes of material deformation and failure.
Biography
Freund received his Ph.D. degree from Northwestern University in 1967. He is the author or co-author of over 190 published articles on stress waves in solids, fracture mechanics, seismology, computational mechanics, dislocation theory, thin films, microstructure evolution in films, and engineering education, plus monographs on Dynamic Fracture Mechanics and on Thin Film Materials. His current research interests include: mechanics of biological materials (cell adhesion, molecular transport in cell walls) and mechanics of thin film materials (evolution of microstructure, influence of strain on quantum mechanical transport, lattice mismatched heterostructures). Freund presently serves as Associate Editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and as President of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Interests
Freund's derivation of the equations describing the propagation of cracks in an elastic body has led to the understanding of dynamic fracture that is now widely used in such critically important applications as the safety of gas pile lines and the safety of nuclear containment vessels. Professor Freund's research is concerned with mechanical phenomena in solid materials, focusing on the relationship between the overall mechanical state of a deformable solid and the localized physical processes of material deformation and failure. Work on fracture in cases when material inertia effects are significant has led to descriptions of the processes of dynamic crack growth in elastic and elastic-plastic engineering materials, dynamic faulting in the earth's crust, fragmentation of ceramics and other brittle materials under impact loading, and dynamic failure in ductile materials. As a current focus, Professor Freund and his students have been concerned with mechanical phenomena involved in fabrication, reliability, and performance of solid-state electronic devices. Among the issues under study are: stress-driven surface diffusion and evolution of microstructure during vapor deposition of semiconductor materials, dislocation formation and growth in strained semiconductors, mechanics of self-assembly of quantum structures, influence of strain on quantum mechanical charge transport in heterostructures, and compliant substrate strategies for fabrication of mechanically stable strained semiconductor structures. Professor Freund was awarded the 2000 William Prager Medal by the Society of Engineering Science. He is the author or co-author of over 175 articles on stress waves in solids, fracture mechanics, seismology, computational mechanics, dislocation theory, mechanics of thin films, and applied physics, and the author of a Cambridge University Press monograph on Dynamic Fracture Mechanics. Currently, Professor Freund serves as Editor of the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and as Treasurer of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Awards
Engineering Traineeship, National Science Foundation, 1964-67
Henry Hess Award, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1974
Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1980
Fellow, American Academy of Mechanics, 1983
General Lecture, Tenth U. S. National Congress of Applied Mechanics, Austin, 1986
George R. Irwin Medal, American Society for Testing and Materials, 1987
Michael A. Sadowsky Mechanics Lecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Insititute, 1988
Henry Ledyard Goddard University Professor, Brown University, 1988
Technical Analysis Corporation President's Award, Tau Beta Pi Teaching Award, Brown University, 1990
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Elected Fellow 1993
Dedicated NSF/ONR Symposium on Dynamic Failure Mechanics in Modern Materials, California Institute of Technology, 1994
Alexander Graham Christie Lecture, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, 1994
National Academy of Engineering, Elected 1994
Russell Severance Springer Professor, University of California, Berkeley, 1995-96
Alumni Honor Award, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996
National Academy of Sciences, Elected 1997
Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1999-2001
William Prager Medal, Society of Engineering Science, 2000
Research Highlights Lecture Series, National Science Foundation, Directorate for Engineering, February 2001
Fellow, Society of Engineering Science, Elected 2002
Timoshenko Medal, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2003
Yunchuan Aisinjioro-Soo Distinguished Lecture, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, University Of Illinois, 2003
Jerzy Nowinski Lecture, Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware, 2004
William Gurley Lecture in Mechanical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2005
The Aris and Bessie B. Phillips Lecture in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Yale University, 2005
Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006
Affiliations
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Fellow
Society of Engineering Science, Life Member
International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, US delegate (1986-96), Treasurer (1996-04), President (2004-08)
US National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Member
National Academy Of Sciences, elected 1996
National Academy of Engineering, elected 1994
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 1993
9/74-6/75: Visiting Associate Professor of Applied Mechanics and Materials Science, Stanford University
9/83-1/84: Visiting Scholar, Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University
7/88-date: Henry Ledyard Goddard University Professor, Brown University
1/95-6/95: Visiting Professor of Applied Mechanics and Materials Science, Stanford University
10/95-12/95 Russell Severance Springer Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
1/99-6/99 Visiting Associate in Aeronautics, California Institute of Technology
1/99-12/01 Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena
8/03-12/03 Visiting Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Beckman Institute Fellow, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
