In memoriam: Fazil Erdogan, expert in fracture mechanics

Fazil Erdogan, a former dean of the engineering college who earned a reputation as one of the world’s foremost experts in fracture mechanics, died October 2 at his home. He was 90.

Erdogan received his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul and his Ph.D. from Lehigh in 1955. He joined the faculty in 1957 and served as chair of the department of mechanical engineering and mechanics and, in the late 1990s, as interim dean of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. He retired in 2001 as G. Whitney Snyder Professor Emeritus.

In addition to fracture mechanics, Erdogan conducted research into applied mathematics and the mechanics of engineering materials. His studies of the propagation, or growth, of cracks in materials were of critical importance to airplanes, bridges, buildings and other engineering systems. Over a 30-year period, he received continuous grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation.

During his half-century at Lehigh, Erdogan received many of the highest honors in his field. In 1983-84, he spent 10 months at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solid Mechanics in Freiburg, Germany, as a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Scientist Award, one of the top research fellowships given by the German government. He received the Humboldt Award a second time in 1999.

In 1993, Erdogan was named A.C. Eringen Medalist of the Society of Engineering Science. In 1997, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest distinctions accorded to engineers in the United States.

In 1998 Lehigh hosted The International Symposium on Mechanics and Applied Mathematics in Erdogan’s honor. The three-day event drew many of the world’s foremost experts in the two fields, including some of the more than 40 Ph.D. recipients whom Erdogan supervised throughout his career.

At the symposium, the late Ferdinand Beer, a former chair of the mechanical engineering department, credited Erdogan and two of his colleagues, George Sih and Paul Paris, for bringing to Lehigh a “truly international reputation” in fracture mechanics. To that list, Herman Nied, professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, added two other faculty members, George Irwin and Robert P. Wei.

In 2001, Erdogan spent three months in Japan through the eminent scientist invitation program of the Japanese government. The following year, he stayed two months in Japan through the invitation fellowship program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

In 2008, the Journal of Applied Mechanics published a special issue honoring Erdogan’s contributions to fracture mechanics and applied mathematics. Titled “Honoring Professor Erdogan’s Seminal Contributions to Mixed Boundary-Value Problems of Inhomogeneous and Functionally Graded Materials,” the issue contained 13 articles, many of them by Erdogan’s former students and research collaborators.

The special issue grew out of a symposium held in Erdogan’s honor in Hawaii in 2006. An article in the issue praised Erdogan for influencing several generations of engineers working on mixed boundary-value problems in inhomogeneous media.

“The analytical approaches that Erdogan developed with his students in the 1960s and 1970s for the formulation and reduction of fracture mechanics problems…have motivated researchers working in this area throughout the world,” the article said.

“Professor Erdogan continues to be a source of inspiration to the mechanics community in leading the way in the area of mixed boundary-value problems in inhomogeneous and functionally graded media and also in providing selfless guidance to others.”

Nied, one of Erdogan’s Ph.D. students, echoed those comments.

“Fazil Erdogan has made very significant contributions both to the mathematical and the experimental side of fracture mechanics,” Nied said at the time, “particularly to the fracture of pressure vessels and piping and to the behavior of material interfaces.”

Erdogan was the author of more than 200 scholarly articles and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He also served as a visiting professor at universities in Germany and at the Technical University of Denmark, and as a visiting research scientist for DuPont Co.

Erdogan is survived by his wife, Barbara; a daughter, Ann Tracy; a son, Turan Erdogan; and eight grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, October 10, at Packer Memorial Chapel. Contributions may be made to the National Parkinson Foundation.