April 2007

Bradley Lerch
Distinguished Service Award
April, 2007, Orlando

The Composite Materials Handbook (CMH-17) is pleased to recognize Dr Bradley (Brad) Lerch for his distinguished service to the Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) working group. Brad has been a member of the MMC working group since 1994. He became chair of the testing working group in 1996 and co-chair of the overall MMC working group in 2002. Brad has guided the development of the MMC Handbook during his 13 years of exceptional service. He was instrumental in developing the outline of Volume 4 and the format for data presentation. He provided the first set of fiber and composite data to the handbook. Brad authored or co-authored most of the write-ups in the current version of the Handbook. He has spent over half of his professional career supporting the development of Titanium Matrix Composite (TMCs). He has advanced the usage of TMCs through his detailed analysis of the deformation and damage in these materials. He has also contributed to the understanding of fatigue in TMCs, focusing on mean stress effects.

Brad’s professional career as a research engineer in the Mechanics and Lifing Branch at the NASA-Glenn Research Center has led efforts in developing and verifying deformation and lifing models on a host of aerospace structural materials. These activities have provided an invaluable insight to the understanding of TMC materials and their behavior in the discussion of fatigue data in the handbook.

On behalf of the entire MMC Working Group, it is my honor to present the Composite Materials Handbook Distinguished Service Award to Dr Bradley Lerch.



Jay Jira
Distinguished Service Award
April, 2007, Orlando

The Composite Materials Handbook (CMH-17) is pleased to recognize Mr Jay Jira for his distinguished service to the Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) working group. Jay has been a member of the working group since 1995 and has contributed greatly to the direction and organization of the handbook including authoring numerous sections.

Jay prepared and submitted a significant and thorough data set on titanium matrix composites (TMC) to the handbook and has greatly improved the standard formats in which data is presented. Jay has spent most of his professional career supporting the development of TMCs. He has advanced the usage of TMCs through his research on understanding fatigue crack growth behavior in these materials by introducing and adopting the “crack bridging” concept as a viable approach in modeling crack growth behavior in continuously reinforced TMCs.

Jay’s professional career as a Materials Research Engineer in the Metals Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory has led efforts in developing and verifying life-prediction models on a host of aerospace structural materials. These activities have provided valuable insight to the MMC working group in understanding TMC behavior and in the discussion of mechanical property data in the handbook.

On behalf of the entire MMC Working Group, it is my pleasure to present the Composite Materials Handbook Distinguished Service Award to Mr Jay Jira.