Stelios Kyriakides

Email: skk@mail.utexas.edu
Phone: (512) 471-4167
Office: ASE 5.230 (map)

John Webb Jennings Chair in Engineering
Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Director of the Center for Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Materials

Dr. Kyriakides received a B.Sc. degree in Aeronautical Engineering with first class honors from the University of Bristol in the U.K., and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aeronautics, with specialty in the mechanics of solids, from the California Institute of Technology. He is Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin and holds the John Webb Jennings Chair in Engineering. Kyriakides’ major technical interests are in the mechanics of solids, structures and materials, with an emphasis on instability at both the macro (structural) and micro (material) levels. His work is motivated by practical problems and usually involves combined experimental, analytical and numerical efforts. He has more than 200 publications, has co-authored one book, co-edited 5 books, and has lectured extensively both nationally and internationally. Among other research contributions, he has pioneered propagating instabilities in structures and materials. The subject first appeared in the problem of buckle propagation in offshore pipelines in the 1980s, but the underlying mechanism of localization of deformation, local arrest, and propagation was subsequently demonstrated to govern other structures and a variety of material systems, including: propagating necks in polymers; the onset and spreading of crushing in cellular materials including trabecular bone; the propagation of kink bands in fiber composites and woods; the propagation of phase transition fronts in shape memory alloys; the propagation of Lüders bands in metals, and others. He has also maintained a long-term interest in plastic instabilities and crushing of structures, plasticity, forming problems in manufacturing, localization and ductile failure of metals, the mechanical behavior of composites, etc. He is recognized as a major contributor to these areas.

Dr. Kyriakides has also been one of the pioneers in the development of the technology for offshore oil and gas exploration and production. In particular, he has been a leader in the understanding of the mechanical behavior and establishment of the limit states of tubular structures used as pipelines, risers, tethers, and casings, in deep waters. His research has influenced the manufacture of tubular products, the design procedures for installing them in the sea, and evaluation of their performance of the structures under the operational loads. The results of his research play a prominent role in pipeline design codes and have made him a major technical advisor to the offshore industry worldwide. Part of this body of work has been summarized in a book entitled “Mechanics of Offshore Pipelines: Vol. 1 Buckling and Collapse,” (Elsevier, 2007), with additional volumes to follow.

Dr. Kyriakides is proud of the quality graduate students he has attracted to the University of Texas and mentored to excellence. His doctoral students occupy both academic positions as well as prominent positions in a variety of industries. His M.S. advisees can be found in companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, ExxonMobil, Shell, Applied Materials, Stress Engineering, Schlumberger, Technip, Carbomedics, Sandia National Labs, Lucent Technologies, Aerospatiale, and others.

He has served the community in several roles including: member and Chair of the Executive Committee of the Applied Mechanics Division-ASME; President of the American Academy of Mechanics (AAM); member and Chair of the US National Committee of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; member of the Congress Committee and the General Assembly of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM); co-organizer of conferences including two IUTAM Symposia. He serves on several editorial boards of international journals and is Editor of the International Journal of Solids and Structures. His recognitions include the 2009 Warner T. Koiter Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of ASME and AAM, Docteur Honoris Causa from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon, France.

Current Graduate Students:

• Martin Scales
• Kelin Chen
• Chenglin Yang
• Karlos Kazinakis
• Solon Tsimpoukis
• Jake Haley
• Weihan Zhang