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Preliminary Obituary:
Fred was respected and loved by hundreds of people all over the world. His work was always of the highest quality and he sought to bring out the best from his colleagues and students. He leaves a legacy of expertise in structural mechanics, most notably in the Wittrick-Williams algorithm, and his work will surely continue through those of us who have had the privilege of learning from him. But Fred could never be just a colleague. To all of us and our families he became a friend, generous in his hospitality, keen to share his love of travelling and the great outdoors. He had a strong Christian faith which was a comfort to him in his last days.
--from an email message by David Kennedy sent on April 27, 2019
Cardiff School of Engineering, UK
Chairman of Cardiff Advanced Chinese Engineering Centre
Institute of Modeling and Simulation in Mechanics and Materials
Experience:
Fred Williams obtained a First Class Honours degree at the University of Cambridge in 1961, his PhD in the area of Space Frame Domes from the University of Bristol in 1964 and his Doctor of Science degree from the University of Cambridge in 1985.
Prior to coming to Cardiff in 1975, he had a brief period at Freeman Fox and Partners before becoming a lecturer in Civil Engineering, first at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria (1964- 67) and then at the University of Birmingham (1967-75). While at Birmingham he made one of the rare breakthroughs in classical mechanics with Professor Wittrick. This breakthrough has since been named by others the Wittrick-Williams algorithm. He is currently involved in major new work on extending this algorithm and its areas of application.
At Cardiff, he has pioneered the use of the Wittrick-Williams algorithm principally in the areas of frameworks and prismatic plate structures of Aerospace proportions. Both of these areas have been funded by NASA under a co-operative agreement which has existed since 1981. The resulting space frame program BUNVIS-RG was released by NASA to US users in 1986/87 and successive versions of the plate code VICONOPT have also been released by NASA, starting in 1990/91. Areas of work additional to those listed above include: effects of periodicity; stayed columns; “back of the envelope” calculation methods for gaining structural insight; design and optimisation methods; deployable structures; parallel computing; seismic response; wave propagation; postbuckling behaviour, and rapid equation solving.
Links with China are exceptionally close, with 20 Chinese full professors being co-authors of Journal papers and Professor Williams being a Guest Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and of the University of Science and Technology of China. He is currently on a two year secondment as one of eight internationally leading research professors recruited by City University of Hong Kong.
Collaboration with industry is very close. VICONOPT is a 50,000 line FORTRAN code based on novel theory. It is used by nearly all the American Aerospace Companies and by British Aerospace (Military and Civil) who co-funded it with NASA for many years.
He is author of 276 published or accepted papers of which approximately 70% are in a wide range (over 46) of refereed Journals of international standing.
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