In memory of Steve Attaway (1960–2019)

From the preface of our Special Issue "Meshfree and Particle Methods for Modeling Extreme Loadings" in Computational Particle Mechanics (JS Chen, Sheng-Wei Chi, Mike Hillman Eds)


Special Issue Link:
​ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40571-019-00299-0

This special issue is dedicated to Steve Attaway, who passed away on February 28, 2019. Steve Attaway worked at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, for over 30 years making significant contributions in high-performance computing, shock physics, meshfree methods, the geosciences, concrete mechanics, and blast effects on structures. Steve’s early contributions in meshfree methods included stability analysis of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) (Swegle, J., Hicks, D., and Attaway, S., 1995, “Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Stability Analysis,” JCP v. 116) and the coupling of SPH with the finite element method in a massively parallel explicit dynamics framework (Attaway, S., Heinstein, M., and Swegle, J., 1994, “Coupling of smooth particle hydrodynamics with the finite element method,” Nuclear Eng. Design, v. 150). Steve understood the great potential of meshfree methods for modeling structures under extreme loading conditions including blast effects, penetration, and perforation. Steve helped bring big, seemingly impossible ideas into realization, from parallelizing the PRONTO FEA code in the early 1990s to pushing shock physics codes to run on hundreds of thousands of cores on the world’s fastest supercomputers. Throughout his career, he was recognized with awards and accolades from the Department of Energy. And yet, Steve was never focused solely on the awards, accolades, recognitions, or technical accomplishments, significant though they were. He also invested his time in training the next generation of big thinkers and problem solvers. He probably spent as much time mentoring those around him as he did relishing every opportunity to tackle the “big problems” brought to Sandia for solving. The impact and legacy of Steve Attaway was not just about his technical achievements, but how he was always willing to help, instruct, guide, direct, lead, and serve others (contributed by Joseph Bishop, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM).