NOTICE

The next workshop has been postponed until May 2008. Visit femci.gsfc.nasa.gov for details.

THANK YOU!

The seventh FEMCI Workshop on Innovative Solutions to Structural Analysis and Test Problems was held at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on October 25-26, 2006. We want to thank everyone who participated in the workshop.

Previous workshops have involved over 120 dedicated structural analysts and other engineers from government, industry, and academia, and approximately 20 vendors. The emphasis of the workshop is on innovative solutions to challenging structural analysis problems encountered in aerospace hardware development and test programs. As in previous years, the workshop will feature an informal poster/vendor session and a full day of formal podium presentations, featuring a keynote speaker.

Keynote Speaker: Astronaut Charles Camarda

Dr. Camarda receives a Thank You gift from Jeff Bolognese and Jim Loughlin: “I was the Keynote Speaker at the 2006 FEMCI Workshop and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”

FEMCI continues a winning the streak with our keynote speaker! This year we welcomed Dr. Charles Camarda, one of the astronauts on the Return-to-Flight mission, STS-114 Discovery (July 26-August 9, 2005). Dr. Camarda presentation was entitled The Role of Research and Development in the Return-to-Flight of the Space Shuttle and it was the hit of the workshop.

Dr. Camarda began his long tenure with NASA back in 1974 at Langley as a research scientist in the Thermal Structures Branch of the Structures and Materials Division. So yes, he's one of us! During his time working at Langley, Dr. Camarda earned a masters degree in Engineering Science from George Washington University in the area of mechanics of composite structures at elevated temperature. He earned his doctorate in 1990 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His research work was on the development of advanced modal methods for efficiently predicting transient thermal and structural performance. In 1994, Dr. Camarda became the head of the Thermal Structures Branch at Langley.

In 1996 Dr. Camarda was selected as an astronaut candidate and moved to the Johnson Space Center. It was a long journey, but he finally reached space with the Return-to-Flight mission last year. Dr. Camarda is currently assigned to the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC).

ABOUT THE FEMCI WORKSHOP

The goals of the workshop are to bring together engineers from the aerospace and general engineering community and from academia to exchange knowledge and experience in the fields of finite element modeling, structural mechanics and testing, and to establish a network among analysts. The emphasis of the workshop is on innovative solutions to challenging structural analysis problems encountered in hardware development and test programs. We would like to emphasize that mechanical testing is very much a part of the workshop and encourage people who have done work in this area to submit abstracts for presentations and posters.