Gregory Szuladzinski

Gregory Szuladzinski obtained a master's degree in engineering, specializing in aircraft construction, at the MEL (Mechanics, Energetics and Aviation) Faculty of the Warsaw University of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in structural mechanics from the University of Southern California.

1966-1980: Worked in the United States, most of the time in the aerospace and nuclear industries. The main employers were Northrop Corp. (Boeing 747 design / fuselage analysis) Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena (Viking spacecraft) Parker Hannifin (helicopter control mechanisms) and Aerojet General (nuclear power plant structures and postulated industrial accidents). He has carried out extensive work related to computer simulation of seismic events and other dynamic conditions related to the safety of nuclear power plants and military equipment. He also undertook, as a consultant, a number of smaller projects related to aviation structures.

From 1981 to the present, he works in Australia in the aviation, railway, energy, offshore and industrial processes sectors. In aviation constructions, the projects included an extensive analysis of the A10 wing and landing gear, and constructions of the Mirage plane's bomb sling, including the simulation of an alternative Karinga bomb release. Car collisions were also the subject of his computer simulations.

The author has a number of publications on stress analysis, vibration and nonlinear dynamics. His first book, Dynamics of Structures and Machinery, Problems and Solutions, was published by John Wiley Interscience in 1982.

Since 1966, he has been dealing with the finite element method (FEM), which became his main tool of work in the simulation of structural problems. From 1978-to 79, he worked as a lead analyst at Control Data in Los Angeles, supporting the use of FEM by the company's clients.

Since 1991, he has been conducting research and simulations in the operation of explosives, first in the field of rock crushing and then in the impact of explosives on buildings and metal structures. The violent phenomena analysis included shock damage to buildings, structural failure, fluid-structure interaction, blast protection, and aircraft impact protection. He conducted a series of state-of-the-art studies showing the fragmentation of structures and other objects.

The author's experience in the dynamics of high-speed processes is summarized in his second book, Formulas for Structural and Mechanical Shocks and Impacts (CRC Press, 2009), which has become a reference for many engineers working in this field.

In 2012, he began the 10-year analysis of the plane crash near Smolensk in 2010. He investigated various aspects of structural fragmentation caused by explosions and impacting the ground. The summary of the investigative work is in the Smolensk Disaster of 2010. The last seconds of flight… Much of the simulation work involved is available for viewing on the Internet.

His analytical work related to the WTC towers collapse began soon after the event. Over the years since then, he published a number of papers on various aspects of the disaster. Part of the book Did we learn anything of WTC collapse contains a summary of his results.

He is a member of the Institute of Engineers Australia, a member of the Mechanical and Structural College, and a member of the American engineering associations of ASME and ASCE.