Professor David Hills FREng

Professor of Engineering Science, University of Oxford 

Professor David Hills has made significant contributions to the fields of contact mechanics, fracture mechanics, and their intersection in the subject of fretting fatigue, one of the major causes of the nucleation of cracks.  His efforts span both experimental and theoretical investigations, and have led to a much deeper understanding of the causes, and means of avoidance of, crack nucleation. His current work is widening and deepening our understanding the properties of contact problems. He has strong links with a number of industries where structural integrity is paramount, and is Director of the Rolls-Royce Solid Mechanics University Technology Centre at Oxford, with which he has been associated since its inception in 1989. He is editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Solids and Structures, and been a member of its editorial board for well over thirty years, and has published four monographs in contact mechanics, fretting phenomena, and the modelling of cracks. David Hills is a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, where he is tutor in Engineering Science, and has held most college offices during his tenure.