Professor Tony Spencer FRS Lecture

Poro-Hyperelasticity: The Mechanics of Fluid-Saturated Soft Materials

Patrick Selvadurai (McGill University)

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The lecture is named in honour of Professor Tony Spencer FRS (1929-2008), who worked at the University of Nottingham from 1960 to 1994. Tony was appointed as a Lecturer in the newly formed Department of Theoretical Mechanics which had responsibility for teaching Mathematics to students in the Faculty of Applied  Science, which later became the Faculty of Engineering. Tony became Professor and Head of Department in 1965 and led the vibrant and harmonious group by example for nearly 30 years. He made seminal contributions to non-linear continuum mechanics and theoretical solid mechanics covering theory of finite elasticity, invariant theory of tensor function representations, theory of plasticity, mechanics of granular materials, continuum theory of fibre-reinforced solids and fluids, and theories of laminated and inhomogeneous plates and shells. Tony was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1987 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. He received honours that included the degree of ScD by the University of Cambridge (1980), an honorary doctorate from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1993) and the medal of the Society of Engineering Science for 2008. An International Union for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics symposium was held in his honour in 1994 at the University of Nottingham, which established later the Spencer Institute of Theoretical and Computational Mechanics (October 2007). Tony became Emeritus Professor in 1994 and his retirement had a negligible effect on his profound research activity and productivity, which continued until his death on 26 January 2008.

Professor A.P.S. Selvadurai is William Scott Professor and James McGill Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics at McGill University. He received his PhD in Theoretical Mechanics from The University of Nottingham in 1971 under the tutelage of the late Professor A.J.M. Spencer FRS and his DSc in Theoretical Mechanics in 1986.