Professor Jim Rhodes

Jim Rhodes has championed research in the area of Thin Walled Structures (TWS) for almost 40 years. His contribution to the understanding of the behaviour of TWS is second to none and he has consequently enjoyed a high international standing in the field. He was educated at St Michael's College in Irvine and served a craft apprenticeship with Laird & Sons Ltd, Irvine, before moving to Massey Ferguson Ltd. He was awarded an HNC (with distinction) in Mechanical Engineering from Kilmarnock College, which he then followed by degree studies at the University of Strathclyde, where he graduated with a first class honours BSc in Mechanical Engineering in 1966 before progressing to Doctoral study under Professor James Harvey (Head of Department and later Vice Principal of the University). He was awarded a PhD degree at Strathclyde in 1969 for research in Mechanics of Materials. His external examiner for his PhD was Professor Henry Chilver, later Lord Chilver and Vice Chancellor of Cranfield University

Electricity Markets $64,000 Question

The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines

Volunteers and the Economic Downturn

The recent economic crisis has subjected America's nonprofit organizations to considerable fiscal stress. To find out more about the response of nonprofits to the recent economic climate, the Corporation for National and Community Service partnered with the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Listening Post Project on a national survey of nonprofits and AmeriCorps sponsor organizations.The survey revealed that 80 percent of responding organizations experienced some level of fiscal stress between September 2008 through March 2009, when the downturn intensified, and that for close to 40 percent of them the stress was considered "severe" or "very severe." In response, nearly a quarter (23%) of nonprofits reported decreasing staff hours, a third reported eliminating staff positions, and 40 percent reported postponing the filling of new positions. At the same time, nearly three-fourths of the organizations reported they had maintained or increased the number of people their organizations served, and even among those reporting "severe" or "very severe" fiscal stress and resulting cutbacks in staff, 60 percent reported they had been able to maintain or increase the number of people their organizations served

The buckling and collapse behaviour of saddle-supported cylinders - Keynote Lecture

Recent work by the present authors on the collapse conditions for horizontal cylindrical saddle supported storage vessels is described and reviewed. Attention is directed to a range of geometries, typically R/t < 200, where plastic collapse type failure may be relevant. A series of forty tests on end-supported model cylinders loaded centrally by a rigid saddle were performed and a variety of theoretical methods were used for comparison with the test results. It was found that the best agreement was obtained by using an elasticplastic finite element analysis approach. The results of a parametric survey based on the elastic-plastic finite element method are summarised. The paper reports some validation checks, which have been performed to support the parametric results