SAE International Announces Recipients of the 2009 SAE/AISI Sydney H. Melbourne Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Automotive Sheet Steel

WARRENDALE, Pa., May 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SAE International announces that four distinguished Ford Motor Company professionals are the winners of the 2009 SAE/AISI Sydney H. Melbourne Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Automotive Sheet Steel. They include:

• Bhimaraddi Alavandi, Technical Specialist, North American Crash Safety, Ford Motor Company
• Rakshit Ramachandra, Research Engineer, Research and Advanced Engineering,  Ford Motor Company
• Raj Sohmshetty, Engineering Supervisor, Research & Advanced Engineering, Ford Motor Company
• Z. Cedric Xia, Technical Leader, Research & Advanced Engineering, Ford Motor Company

The four were presented with the award during the Awards Ceremony at the SAE 2010 World Congress. The four were recognized for their combined authorship of technical paper, "DP590 GI Mechanical Property Variability and Structural Response CAE Studies." 

This award recognizes an author or authors who effectively demonstrate ways to further the use of sheet steel in automotive applications. The paper must be well-organized, written in a succinct manner and possess excellent technical merit. It should also foster long-term benefits to sheet steel industry professionals worldwide.

The award honors the memory and accomplishments of the late Sydney H. Melbourne of Dofasco Inc., and encourages others to strive for the level of excellence he attained within his organization, the steel industry and the automotive marketplace. Established in 1997, this distinguished award is administered by the Melbourne Award Board.

SAE International is a global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries. SAE International's core competencies are life-long learning and voluntary consensus standards development. SAE International's charitable arm is the SAE Foundation, which supports many programs, including A World in Motion® and the Collegiate Design Series.

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Contact: Shawn Andreassi, SAE International, via [email protected] or 1-724-772-8522

SOURCE SAE International