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A L E X A N D E R C. S C O R D E L I S
1923–2007
Elected in 1978
“For pioneering the development and application of advanced structural
analysis to the design of record-breaking and unique structural systems.”
BY JOHN E. BREEN
ALEXANDER C. SCORDELIS, Byron L. and Elvira E.
Nishkian Professor Emeritus of Structural Engineering at the
University of California, Berkeley, and one of the nation’s most
influential experts on design and analysis of thin-shell structures
and long-span, prestressed-concrete bridges, died on August
27, 2007, at the age of 83. He was elected a member of NAE in
1978 for “pioneering the development and applications of
advanced structural analysis to the design of record-breaking
and unique structural systems.”
Although Alex was first and foremost a renowned teacher
at Berkeley, his clear, comprehensive papers and reports
extended his influence far beyond the Berkeley campus. His
superbly organized lectures, clear explanations, and penetrating
questions led his students in the classroom and researchers in
the laboratory to a deep understanding and mastery of the
material. Through publications, consulting activities, and public
service, he extended these benefits to consulting engineers,
national and international committees, commissions charged
with assessing the safety of huge, complex structures, and fellow
experts struggling to understand the behavior and dynamic
loading of newly emerging structural systems of prestressed
concrete and thin concrete shells.
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246 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Alex was born on September 27, 1923, in San Francisco. His
parents, Greek immigrants who owned a grocery store in the
Marina district, instilled in him a lifelong pride in his Greek
heritage. At 16, he entered UC Berkeley as an undergraduate.
After Pearl Harbor, he joined ROTC and then interrupted his
studies to serve in Europe during World War II with the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers. His leadership skills were developed
under fire at an early age, when he fought in the Battle of the
Bulge and was with the troops that liberated concentration
camps at the close of European hostilities. He was awarded the
Bronze Star for meritorious achievement and the Purple Heart
for combat wounds. In 1946, he left active duty as a captain but
continued to serve in the reserves. He ultimately achieved the
rank of major.
After the war, Alex returned to Berkeley where he completed
his B.S. in civil engineering in 1948, and went on to MIT where
he received an M.S. in civil engineering in 1949. He then
returned to UC Berkeley as an instructor and was promoted
through the professorial ranks to full professor in 1962. He was
awarded the Nishkian Chair as professor of structural
engineering in 1987.
In the years immediately following World War II, there were
three major developments in structural engineering that greatly
influenced his career. The first of these was the great expansion
of graduate education in engineering in the United States, which
created a ready market for Alex’s skills as a leader, lecturer,
and innovative researcher. The civil engineering faculty at
Berkeley, led by Alex and others, became one of the foremost
creative teams in the world advancing structural mechanics
and structural engineering.
The second development was the emergence of an essentially
new material, prestressed concrete, as the dominant construction
material in medium- and long-span bridges. Alex was an
organizer of the First World Conference on Prestressed Concrete
in 1957. Led by T. Y. Lin, his Berkeley colleague and lifelong
friend, this conference was the practical introduction in the
United States of a unique form of construction that had been
recently introduced more widely in Europe for the reconstruction
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ALEXANDER C. SCORDELIS
of major bridges that had been damaged or destroyed during
the war. Alex’s advanced analysis techniques became the most
widely used procedures for analyzing reinforced and post-
tensioned concrete box-girder bridges, an efficient and attractive
structural art form that soon appeared in California and across
the country. He worked closely with Lin to provide an analytical
framework for many of Lin’s pioneering designs.
The third development was the birth of the electronic
computer and the mushrooming growth of numerical analysis
and computation procedures in structural engineering. The
Berkeley group, with leaders like Ray Clough, Ed Wilson, Karl
Pister, Vitelmo Bertero, Boris Bresler, T. Y. Lin, Egor Popov,
and others, combined efficient numerical analysis tools and
advanced understanding of both structural analysis and
structural behavior to launch comprehensive new analysis and
design procedures for structural engineering. Alex, who had
great insight into structural behavior based on more classical
analyses, brought this insight to the new computer analyses to
develop revolutionary analysis procedures for long-span, box-
girder bridges and free-form, thin-shell structures. He enabled
designers to analyze and design graceful, slender bridges and
inspirational thin-shell roofs. Using models of box-girder
bridges, he verified the accuracy of the analyses in laboratory
tests.
In recognition of his accomplishments, Alex received three
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Moisseiff Awards
for papers in 1976, 1981, and 1992. This award is given for
excellence in papers on structural design, including applied
mechanics, theoretical analysis, or constructive improvement
of engineering structures. Alex was cited for nonlinear analysis
of reinforced-concrete shells, the analysis of curved, prestressed,
segmental bridges, and the analysis of slender, concrete bridge
towers under cyclic lateral load, all of which were not only
complex analytically but were also important to practical design
and public safety. These were the overriding common
denominators of Alex’s work—intellectually advanced and
rigorous analysis for important engineering applications.
The engineering profession recognized his accomplishments
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248 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
by naming him an Honorary Member of ASCE in 1989 and an
Honorary Member of the International Association for Shell
and Spatial Structures in 1992 and bestowing on him ASCE’s
Howard Award for structural design in 1989. In 1994, the
International Federation for Structural Concrete awarded him
its highest honor, the Freyssinet Medal, only the third time an
American was so honored. He was the author of more than 170
papers and also served on a number of governmental boards
assessing seismic safety — including panels on the Golden Gate
Bridge and the design of a new eastern span for the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. He was one of 11 members
appointed by the governor of California in 1989 to a Board of
Inquiry into the Loma Prieta Earthquake, to issue the defining
assessment of the quake’s impact on California’s infrastructure.
Throughout his career, Alex Scordelis was a consultant on
applications of his physical and computational research to
practical engineering projects, including more than 40 major
projects, such as thin-shell structures and long-span bridge
structures.
However, simply recounting Alex’s technical accomplishments
does not convey the essence of his greatness. Alex was vitally
interested in the development of engineers as people. He
challenged his students in the classroom with penetrating
questions to stimulate their understanding, encourage them to
apply the techniques they had learned to a wide range of
problems, and help them learn to express themselves
effectively.
A treasured member of professional committees, Alex had
the ability to clarify competing and conflicting points of view
and develop consensus on important design and analysis
procedures. Particularly in the area of thin-shell structures, he
had to deal with strong-willed experts with fiery artistic
temperaments. Somehow, Alex was able to “herd cats” and
move even these groups toward consensus.
He had a special gift for relating to young people — his
children, his students, his research students, young faculty,
neophyte experts serving on their first national or international
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ALEXANDER C. SCORDELIS
technical committees, young designers in consulting offices or
bridge departments. He never talked down to them, and he
always took a personal interest in their work. He had a
wonderful sense of humor, often self-deprecating, and a knack
for reducing complex subjects to their essence, showing
relationships between topics, and presenting the results in the
form of targeted questions that ensured his pupils or listeners
really understood the solution.
He could be as dedicated in teaching the proper appreciation
of a glass of ouzo as he was in explaining how to set up a proper
finite-element analysis of a curved post-tensioned bridge. He
was just as willing to teach important life lessons—how to make
an effective presentation, or win engineers over to your point
of view, or achieve consensus on a report assessing the structural
safety of a complex structure — as he was to teach technical
solutions.
With his passing, many of us recall his pivotal role in the
development of our engineering judgment and, more important,
in the development of our engineering character. Alex Scordelis
left behind a legion of former graduate students who have
extended his research ideas in myriad ways. At his memorial
service, one of these students said that he wished “to recognize
and applaud this thought-provoking mentor and educator who
motivated many of us to follow in his footsteps.” Socrates would
approve.
Just as Alex Scordelis influenced generations of engineering
students, he leaves a legacy of wisdom, values, and love for
generations of his family. He is survived by his wife of 59 years
Georgia, son and daughter-in-law Byron and Stephanie
Scordelis, daughter and son-in-law Karen and Robert
Holtermann, and four grandchildren.
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