Dr. Robert Koch
Award: Solberg Award
Year: 2010
Recipient:
Dr. Robert Koch
Reason:
For his significant engineering research and development accomplishments in the field of anti-corrosion technologies and materials engineering.
Biography:
In 2009, Dr. Robert Koch was named the U.S. Navy’s Senior Technologist (ST) in Undersea Tactical Stealth Systems, residing in the Chief Technology Office at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division, Newport. Prior to that, he was the Head of the NUWC Division Newport Solid Mechanics and Design Branch, managing 18-20 technical employees, and a Chief Research Scientist in Applied Mechanics. Dr. Koch is an internationally recognized researcher in structural- and hydro-acoustics noise propagation, advanced mathematical analysis of transient dynamic high-energy shock events, and general theoretical and applied mechanics formulations.
Dr. Koch received his Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics from Polytechnic University of New York in 1991. His research interests are in computational methods for large-scale problems in 3D fluid/structure interaction, structural acoustics and silencing, and nonlinear solid mechanics. Dr. Koch has researched and published in many areas of computational structural mechanics and acoustics including supercavitating high speed vehicles, statistical energy analysis for structureborne sound transmission in undersea vehicles, marine propulsor structural and structural acoustics analysis, p-version finite element analysis, boundary element advanced analysis, and thermo-fluid-elasto-plastic-creep simulation of the casting fabrication process. Of particular recent interest is the application of explicit finite element methods for the inelastic nonlinear dynamic shock response simulation of complex submerged structures subject to underwater explosions and also high frequency numerical analysis of coupled fluid/structure acoustic sensor systems.
Dr. Koch was recently named the recipient of the 2009 Office of Naval Research (ONR) CAPT Robert Dexter Conrad Award for Scientific Achievement. He is also a member of AIAA, ASME, ASA, Sigma Xi, and formerly the New York Academy of Sciences, has been cited eight times each in both Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and Who’s Who in America, and has been a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Rhode Island since 1996. After becoming a “Top Ten” national finalist in 2004, he was named the National Society of Professional Engineers’ National Federal Engineer of the Year in 2005. In 2006, Dr. Koch was also selected as one of eight Professional Engineers (PEs) nationally for a permanent seat on the Mechanical Engineering Board of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) to prepare the National Mechanical Engineering PE Examination. As a volunteer for the NCEES since 2001, he has also established national grading standards. Dr. Koch has also been an Adjunct Professor of Engineering, teaching undergraduate engineering courses for the past 24 years at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY, and Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI.