Don’t miss the 2021 Lester/Mehl Honor Lecture to be presented at 9:00 a.m. (MT) on 17 November 2021 by Bernhard R. Tittmann, PhD, during ASNT 2021: The Annual Conference. The lecture can be attended by all ASNT 2021 attendees, whether in-person or virtual.
In “A Survey of Instrumentations and Methods for Material Characterization, Nondestructive Testing, and Health Monitoring in Harsh Environments,” Tittmann will present possible research approaches and preliminary results toward solving technologically important SHM problems.
“I have 55 to 60 years of engineering behind me. It is a great pleasure and honor to be recognized for having somewhat contributed to the applications,” said Tittmann, who holds seven patents, three patent disclosures, and has authored or co-authored more than 480 papers, many of which have appeared in refereed journals and proceedings.
He explained that his most recent patent, which he worked on for several years with a team of researchers, would be a breakthrough for use in nuclear reactors. “It is a patent on material that is resistant to high temperatures and nuclear radiation,” he said.
“Most of my research has to do with developing approaches for solving practical problems primarily with the use of ultrasound,” he said.
In the lecture, he will discuss approaches to NDT applications including the use of electromagnetic-generated guided waves for in-place crack detection in locomotive wheels, acoustic emission in-process monitoring of carbon-carbon polymer matrix for aircraft brakes, embedded wireless corrosion detection technology, crack detection of concrete pipes, ultrasonic transducers for harsh environments, acoustic microscopy for the characterization of melanoma, and imaging of nanometer plant fibrils with tapping atomic force microscopy.
Background
Tittmann is the Schell Professor Emeritus and Director of the Engineering Nanostructure Characterization Center at the Penn State Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. He established the Center in 1995.
He served on the technical staff in the Materials Mechanics and Physical Electronics Groups at the Science Center of Rockwell International (formerly North American Aviation), before serving as manager of materials characterization from 1979 to 1989. He was the Howard Hughes Fellow in the microwave antenna department of the Hughes Research Lab in Culver City, California from 1957 to 1962.
Throughout his career, he has also been a visiting professor or lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, and in France at the University of Paris VII and the University of Paris III. He received his B.S. in physics and mathematics from George Washington University in Washington, DC, and his Ph.D. in solid-state physics from the University of California.
Tittmann has been a member of ASNT since 1980. He is a Fellow of ASM International, the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE). He has been actively involved in committee work for ASA and IEEE. He is also a member of the American Ceramic Society, American Physical Society, Materials Research Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Honor Society, and Sigma Pi Sigma (physics honor society). He is a senior member of International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE).
Tittmann is the recipient of many awards, including the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award through Marquis Who’s Who in 2018 and the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society’s Distinguished Service Award in 2017.
Though technically retired, Tittman is still involved in research with a team at Penn State and recently wrote a paper on the use of bismuth titanate as a ceramic RPG electric transducer published in Sensors, a peer-reviewed, open access journal on the science and technology of sensors.
About the Lester/Mehl Honor Lecture
The Lester/Mehl Honor Lecture recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the science of NDT. Established in memory of the outstanding contributions to ASNT and the NDT industry by Dr. Horace H. Lester and Dr. Robert F. Mehl, the previously separate honors were merged in 2018.
The first Mehl Award was presented in 1941 to Charles W. Briggs while the first Lester Award was presented to George A. Russ in 1943. Since then, there have been more than 80 recipients of the combined awards.
Honorees are selected annually near ASNT’s Annual Conference and present the Honor Lecture the following year.
Nominations can be made by any member of ASNT. For more information about the award, or a list of previous recipients, go to the Lester/Mehl Honor Lecture page on the ASNT website. asnt.org/MajorSiteSections/About/Awards/Lester-Mehl.aspx
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Cindi Leeman is Educational Materials Supervisor at ASNT, cleeman@asnt.org.
To attend ASNT 2021: The Annual Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, 15–18 November 2021, go the the ASNT registration page.