The American Concrete Institute and the Reinforced Concrete Research Council announced the recipient of the Arthur J. Boase Award of 2007 to:
Thomas T. C. Hsu
University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA,
for his “extensive research advancing the understanding of torsion in structural concrete members, and for many contributions to codification of design for shear and torsion.”
Arthur J. Boase Award was established in 1971 to recognize and honor a person, persons, or organization for outstanding activities and achievements in the field of reinforced concrete.
Thomas T. C. Hsu is the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Houston, Houston, TX. He has been with UH for 27 years, serving as the Chair of Department of Civil Engineering from 1980 to 1984 and the founding director of Thomas T. C. Hsu Structural Research Laboratory from 1982 to 2003.
He received a B.S. degree in Architectural Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, China in 1957, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Structural Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 1960 and 1962.
Dr. Hsu was employed in the Structural Research Laboratory of the Portland Cement Association (PCA), Skokie, IL, following his graduation from Cornell, and subsequently was a Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, from 1968 to 1980.
Dr. Hsu is well known for his research in shear and torsion of reinforced concrete. During the past two decades, he tested full-sized elements using a “Universal Element Tester” at the University of Houston, from which he established the biaxial constitutive laws for structural concrete and formulated a unified theory to predict the shear and torsional behavior of members made of high-strength, prestressed and fiber reinforced concrete. He is the author of two well known books: “Torsion of Reinforced Concrete” (1984) and “Unified Theory of Reinforced Concrete” (1993).
He is a Fellow of the ACI, and recipient of the Wason Medal for Noteworthy Research in 1965 and the Arthur R Anderson Award for Research in 1990. He is a Fellow of ASCE, and recipient of the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize in 1974. He is also a long-time member of ACI-ASCE Committees 215, Fatigue; 343, Concrete Bridges; and 445, Shear and Torsion. He has also served on ACI Committees 358, Concrete Guideways; ACI Committees on Publication, on Nomination, and on Awards.
C. Vipulanandan, Chairman
Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Y. L. Mo, Director
Thomas T. C. Hsu Structural Research Lab