More than Joints: Prof. Lothar Gaul’s Contributions to IMAC

Prof. Lothar Gaul, who passed away on December 18, 2018, had a tremendous impact on the joint dynamics community. His contributions to joint mechanics range from the well-known Gaul resonator for the experimental study of isolated joints over numerical methods bridging the micro-scale of surface roughness to the macro-scale of structures to semi-active joints for adaptive damping. However, his interests were much broader, spanning vibrations, wave transmission, and acoustics in structures and fluids including fluid–structure interaction with applications in soil–foundation interaction and structural health monitoring. A characteristic of his research was the elegant combination of experimental and numerical methods, where he made significant contributions to the development of the boundary element method and the numerical modeling of viscoelasticity using fractional derivatives.