Zhong Wanxie

AWARDEE OF MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS PRIZE

ZHONG WANXIE

Abstract

Zhong Wanxie, mechanician on engineering mechanics and computational mechanics, was born in Shanghai in 1934. He is now an academician of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) of China; Vice President of Chinese Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; Member of the Executive Council of International Association for Computational Mechanics(IACM); Honorary Professor of Hong Kong University and University of Wales, U.K.
On graduating from Tong Ji University in 1956, Zhong entered The Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences where he learned a lot from two famous Academicians of CAS. In 1957, he was appointed as Prof. Chien's teaching assistant in the research class on engineering mechanics held in Tsing Hua University. In 1958, Prof. Tsien,H.S. appointed him to give the courses theoretical mechanics in the University of Science and Technology of China. In the mean while, he was engaged in research work on solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, variational principle, and so on.
In 1962, invited by Prof. Qian,L.X., he moved to Dalian University of Technology and works there till today.
Zhong's interests cover a wide range, however he has paid special attention to the applications of mechanical theory and methodology to engineering. In early 1970s, he lead several young people (including G.D.Cheng, J.H.Lin) to promote the applications of computational mechanics in China. The work of the team was appreciated not only in Shanghai, but also all over China. The programs they developed, such as JIGFEX, DDJ, JCAD, etc.,  were widely used, and many important projects were resolved using them. Zhong enjoyed very high reputation, and was invited to give a series of lectures in Shanghai Science Hall, thousands of young engineers in a variety of fields, coming from many cities, attended his lectures. Many of them became the backbones of computer applications in their respective fields. 
In 1984, Chinese Association for Computational Mechanics (CACM) was founded, Zhong was elected its Chairman. In 1986, he was elected one of the eleven members of the IACM Executive Council. Since then, under his leadership, computational mechanics has developed rapidly. Because of his outstanding contribution to the computational mechanics community in China and the world, he was given the Fellow Award  in the World Congress of Computational Mechanics held in Argentina 1997.
In 1980s, Zhong established a new upper- and lower-bound theorem in the limit analysis, and then enlightened by the optimum control theory, he initiated the parametrical variational principle and the relative quadratic programming algorithm. These achievements have been used in many fields such as elasto-plastic contact analysis, soil mechanics, etc., many complicated problems were solved for the first time.
In 1990s,  Zhong researched the governing equations and solution methods of modern control theory. He discovered the analogy relationship between its linear quadratic theory and the substructuring theory of structural mechanics. That means the two fields can establish one-one correspondent relationship, and so the achievements in one field can be shared by the other field. It powerfully promoted the relative research work. He also established the precise integration scheme, which is an explicit and unconditionally stable direct integration scheme, and can obtain its precise solution on computers, up to more than ten digits. It has been widely used in China. Based on this scheme, Zhong has resolved a series of problems in his monograph A New Systematic Methodology for Theory of Elasticity  that the Timoshenko system was unable to solve .