Prof. Worsak recognized as distinguished AIT alumnus
Prof. Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai (above right), dean of the School of Engineering and Technology, was recognized as a distinguished AIT alumnus at the AIT Alumni Association at the general meeting of the AIT Alumni Association (Thailand Chapter) on 22 September 2006.
Prof. Worsak graduated from AIT with a Master of Engineering (Structural Engineering and Construction) in 1973 and received his Ph.D. from the University of California in 1978. A Fulbright scholar, Prof. Worsak also was honored with Earle C. Anthony Award, U.C. Berkeley in 1977 and Thailand's National Researcher of the Year in 2002.
Prof. Worsak now serves as vice president of the Engineering Institute of Thailand and a member of The Royal Institute of Thailand. He is also a member of the General Council of the International Association of Computational Mechanics; chairman of International Steering Committee of the East Asia Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering; and vice president for Asia, Global Alliance for Disaster Reduction.
Prof. Worsak's research in the early days of finite element method development focused on developing new finite element methodologies and numerical methods. His interests later were shifted to nonlinear solution techniques as well as the numerical aspects of dynamic problems. He was also interested in finite element software development especially under personal computer environment. His software package, Microfeap, earned wide-spread users in the region and earned him an award from the National Research Council of Thailand.
His current interest is given to meshfree methods based on the Kriging Interpolation. His other current interest is also structural health monitoring. Based on this research, he has introduced a Global Flexibility Index (GFI) that can be used to monitor the global weakening of highway bridges.