Eric Hansen, Darren Tennant, Robert Smilowitz, and Jim Weeks accepted the award at SAVIAC’s 78th Annual Shock and Vibration Symposium.

NEW YORK - A team of Weidlinger engineers received the Henry C. Pusey Award during the opening ceremony of the 78th Shock and Vibration Symposium held by the Shock and Vibration Information Analysis Center (SAVIAC). The symposium took place on November 4-8, 2007, at the Sheraton City Center in Philadelphia, PA. Eric Hansen, Darren Tennant, Robert Smilowitz, and Jim Weeks received the Pusey Award for their paper, “Numerical Investigation of the Vulnerability of Flat Slab Reinforced Concrete Structures to Airblast.” The award is given annually to the outstanding paper of the previous symposium (more than 200 papers are typically presented). The paper is chosen for its unique technical contributions to shock and vibration research, its advancement of the state of the art of the authors' fields, and for high-quality writing and presentation. Dr. Raymond P. Daddazio, Weidlinger president and past Henry C. Pusey Award winner, presented the award to the authors, saying, “This award underscores the importance of your work, which was to explain and develop solutions that mitigate progressive collapse in buildings.”

SAVIAC’s most prestigious honor, the Mel Baron Award, was also presented at the ceremony to Dr. John A. DeRuntz, Jr., for his pioneering work in numerical simulation methods and tools that analyze the response of submarines and surface ships to underwater explosions. As developer of the Underwater Shock Analysis (USA) and Cavitating Fluid Analyzer (CFA) codes, he is as one of the community’s outstanding researchers. The award was named for one of Weidlinger’s founding principals, Dr. Melvin L. Baron, in recognition of his technical contributions and leadership in computational structural dynamics and shock- and vibration-related specialties. The award is given for unique contributions to the field as well as for lifetime achievement. The award was presented to Dr. DeRuntz by Professor Thomas L. Geers, the 2001 award recipient. Previous honorees are: Dr. Eugene Sevin (1998), Professor Ted Belytschko (1999), Professor Walter D. Pilkey (2000), Professor Thomas L. Geers (2001), Mr. George J. O’Hara (2002), Dr. Ivan S. Sandler (2003), Mr. David D. Smallwood (2004), and Professor Frank L. DiMaggio (2006).

SAVIAC (www.saviac.org) is jointly sponsored by the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and Department of Energy laboratories. It serves as an informational resource for US government agencies, contractors, and academics concerned with structural dynamics design, analysis, testing, shock physics, and weapons effects. SAVIAC’s annual symposium is the community’s leading forum for presenting and discussing new developments and ongoing research. The symposium, established in 1947, includes both classified and unclassified sessions. The classified sessions allow critical technology and classified (up to secret level) research to be presented in closed forums of cleared US government and government-contractor researchers. Topics include shock-ship testing, water shock, weapons effects (air blast, ground shock, cratering, penetration), shock physics, earthquake engineering, structural dynamics, and shock and vibration instrumentation and experiment techniques. Panel discussions address topics such as new software developments andaccelerometer isolation problems. Tutorials provide up-to-date technology overviews by leading specialists.