ASCE has honored Jiun-Shyan (J.S.) Chen, Ph.D., F.EMI, M.ASCE, with the 2024 Raymond D. Mindlin Medal for seminal contributions to the development of advanced of finite element and meshfree methods and their applications to a wide range of applied mechanics problems and solids and structures under extreme conditions.
Chen did pioneering work in computational mechanics by demonstrating that meshless methods were superior to traditional finite-element in mechanics problems with large demonstration. This work led to the application of meshless methods to several important engineering problems. His second important contribution was in developing techniques to make meshless methods computationally efficient, thus opening the door to practical deployment. Beyond solids and structures, meshless methods have found applications in biological and geomaterials, and in the simulation of damage and fragmentation of structural materials under blast loading.
He has received prestigious awards from many professional organizations, and has served as president of the Engineering Mechanics Institute and as president of the U.S. Association of Computational Mechanics.
The Raymond D. Mindlin Medal is awarded to an individual in recognition of outstanding research contributions to applied solid mechanics.
