Cesar Sciammarella

Cesar Augusto Sciammarella (born August 22, 1924) has made significant contributions to the field of experimental mechanics. In the last decade he has extended his pioneering developments in moiré, holography, and speckle interferometry methodologies down to the nanometric level. These efforts have resulted in the field of optics to go beyond the classical Rayleigh limit reaching the nanometer range and in the electron microscopy to resolutions of the order of atomic distances.

His fundamental research is widely used for 3D reconstruction, and stress and strain analysis. In his Doctoral Thesis on the Moiré method he extended the Continuum Mechanics model originally developed by Dantu to large deformations. He developed fundamental equations on the properties of moiré fringes, signs conventions. Furthermore, he applied the moiré method to the solution of a plasticity problem, this was the first complete analysis of a non elastic problem with the moiré method. Dr. Sciammarella generalized the concept of fringe order in methods that measure displacements using Fourier analysis in the process of formation of the fringe images. He proved formally that the orders could be represented by real numbers instead of integers as it was usual at the time of his publication. In 1966, he presented a full model of the moiré fringes as phase modulated signals and provided a method to obtain displacements and strains for moiré and photo-elastic fringes. He introduced for the first time in the literature the Fourier method as a tool for fringe pattern analysis. His model stands today as a standard model used in the fringe analysis methodology.

• Diploma in Civil Engineering University of Buenos Aires, July 1950
• Ph.D., Illinois Institute of Technology, June 1960

Cesar Sciammarella received his diploma in Civil Engineering from the University of Buenos Aires in July 1950. After graduation he worked as a professional engineer in different industries and in different capacities including the Director of the Materials Testing Laboratories in the Metallurgy and Materials Division of the Atomic Energy Commission of Argentina. Later he was invited by Dr. A.J. Durelli to come to the US to get a PhD degree under Dr, Durelli's direction. He received his Ph.D., from the Illinois Institute of Technology in June 1960. Upon graduation he returned to the Argentine Atomic Energy Commission.

From 1952-57 Cesar was Professor of Physics at Argentine Army Engineering School. This was a period in Argentina under the democrat voted Juan Domingo Perón. The 1955 under the dictatorship of general Aramburu coup that brought down Perón's difficult republic was aided by officers from Argentine Army Engineering School. Although Cesar was not involved in the coup he was detained and tortured by the uprising at the age of 25. Peron's government fell two weeks after his detention and he was able to escape during the confusion. He spent several months fighting pneumonia caused by his detention.

In 1962 he was invited to be Associate professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville. This is where he did some of his pioneering work on using the Moiré method and the Fourier method to analyze the contours and deformations of bodies. In 1967 he became professor at the Department of Aerospace and Applied Mechanics, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. It was during this period Cesar Sciammarella pioneered digital analysis of moiré fringes with the use of computers. In 1985, he further developed this methodology by putting together an optical and a computer system for fringe pattern analysis. Later he published a series papers answering the fundamental question of how far is it possible to recover fringe order information utilizing computer analysis. This work culminated in the paper Heisenberg Principle Applied to the Analysis of Speckle Interferometry Fringes.

Since 2005 Dr. Sciammarella has worked in cutting edge optical technology to go beyond the Rayleigh limit that traditionally has been considered as the maximum resolution that could be obtained in optics in far field observations. With the support of his co-workers he has succeeded in overcoming the Rayleigh limit. In recent work measurements in the far field have been carried out in nano crystals and nano spheres with accuracies on the order of ±3.3 nm.

In 2012 Cesar Sciammarella and his son Dr. Federico Sciammarella co-authored Experimental Mechanics of Solids, a comprehensive textbook of the techniques used in experimental mechanics.

Research, teaching positions

• 1972 - 2008 Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Director of the Experimental Stress Analysis Laboratory
• 2003 - 2008 Professor, Politechnico di Bari Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Gestionale, Bari, Italy.
• 1991 - 1999 Non-Resident Professor, University degli Studi, Nuoro, Italy
• 1967 - 1972 Professor, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Department of Aerospace, Applied Mechanics
• 1961 - 1967 Professor, University of Florida, Department of Mechanics
• 1956 - 1957 Professor, University of Buenos Aires, School of Engineering, Department of Physics
• 1952 - 1957 Professor of Physics, Argentine Army Engineering School

Visiting positions

• Polytechnic Institute of Milano, Milano, Italy, 1972, 1976.
• University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy, 1979.
• Polytechnic Institute of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1979.
• University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France, 1980.
• Polytechnic Institute of Bari, Bari, Italy, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2003 to 2008.

Honors and awards

• 2013 Honorary Member, In recognition of his eminentposition in Experimental Mechanics, SEM.
• 2011 Fylde Electronics Prize, BSSM. Best paper published in the Journal Strain in 2010.
• 2011 P.S. Theocaris award in recognition of pioneering efforts in OpticalMethods SEM.
• 2001. Elected to deliver the 2001 Murray lecture, Society of Experimental Mechanics.
• 2000. Nominated Life Honorary Member of Italian Association of Stress Analysis.
• 1999. Prize for the paper entitled “Holographic Interferometry Applied to the Solution of a shell problem” has been selected, by the International Society for Optical Engineering to be included in a volume of the SPIE Milestone Series of Selected Papers in the field of Holography.
• 1998. Special award for Services to the Society of Experimental Mechanics.
• 1998. Paper entitled “Holographic Moiré, an Optical Tool for the Determination of Displacements, Strains, Contours and Slope of Surfaces”, has been selected, by the International Society for Optical Engineering to be included in a volume of the SPIE Milestone Series of Selected Papers in the field of Holography.
• 1997. Nominated Life Fellow of the Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• 1991. Lazan Award, for outstanding original contributions in Experimental Mechanics, Society for Experimental Mechanics.
• 1982. Hetenyi Award for the best paper in Experimental Mechanics, Holographic Moiré in Real Time, Society for Experimental Mechanics
• 1980. Frocht Award, which recognizes outstanding educators in the field of experimental mechanics, Society for Experimental Stress Analysis.
• 1972. Award for distinguished services to the Applied Mechanics Reviews, American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• 1970. Academy of Mechanics, Special volume 1970, “Moiré Holographic Technique for Three-Dimensional Stress Analysis,” selected as one of the outstanding papers published in the area of mechanics by resident authors in the Americas.
• 1966. Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award for Achievements in the Field of Engineering, (Florida Chapter).