Foreword

Excerpt

The Journal of Elasticity: The Physical and Mathematical Science of Solids has aimed to promote quality in breadth and depth with its publications and engagements of fundamental and physically based research in the area of solid mechanics and related continuum mechanics disciplines for the past half-century. This special publication is dedicated to Millard Fillmore Beatty Jr. who celebrated his 90th birthday on November 13, 2020. The papers contained herein constitute a tribute to Millard for his research and scholarly contributions to the advancement of non-linear elasticity, continuum mechanics, and nonlinear mechanical vibrations, and to his dedicated service to the mechanics community throughout the years. His major activities stretched a period of four decades during a truly golden period of advancements in continuum mechanics that took place in the last half of the 20th century. After earning his PhD degree in Mechanics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1964, Beatty began his first academic position in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Delaware. He left there in 1967 as an Associate Professor and then joined the Department of Engineering Mechanics at the University of Kentucky, being promoted to Professor of Mechanics in 1976. In 1990, he became Chairman of the Department of Engineering Mechanics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, serving as Chairman for 10 years before retiring from teaching in 2001. Since then, Millard Beatty has remained active in research, his most recent reported article being published in 2020. …