doc. RNDr. Petr Lukáš, CSc., dr. h. c.

Petr Lukáš, born in 1938, studied solid state physics at Masaryk University in Brno in the years 1955-1960. He obtained a PhD degree in Physical Metallurgy from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague in 1966. He spent his whole professional life at the Institute of Physics of Materials, which he joined in 1960. His work substantially influenced the research activity and the scientific climate at the Institute.

Physical aspects of the mechanical behavior of metallic materials with emphasis on fatigue of metals were the main research area in which P. Lukáš was active and largely contributed to the state of knowledge. He was an author or co-author of about 120 publications in scientific journals indexed in the ISI Web of Knowledge, several monographs and more than 160 contributions in the proceedings of international scientific conferences. Moreover, he published many papers in domestic scientific journals. He was also very successful in solving problems in the area of applied research. Very early in his career, he developed links with industry and was an author of more than 90 technical reports. The most important of his monographs is the book “Fatigue of Metallic Materials”, which was published in Czech, twice in English and in Japanese. He acted as the subject editor of the Encyclopedia of Materials, published by Elsevier in 2001. According to SCI, the number of quotations of his papers exceeds 2000 and his Hirsch index is 24. His systematic scientific work accentuating both physical and engineering approaches to the phenomenon of fatigue of metallic materials resulted in establishing a “Brno school” of fatigue, which achieved worldwide appreciation.

In 1981 he was elected as a member of the Steering Committee of the International Fatigue Congress and for eight years, from 1994, he was a member of the Steering Committee of the International Conference of the Strength of Materials. He was charged with organizing both scientific events with a worldwide impact in the Czech Republic. Another merit of his which also has to be highlighted is his organization activity which resulted in a series of Colloquia on Fundamental Fatigue Mechanisms. The series started in Brno in 1972 and developed into very efficient annual meetings of researchers from European research groups dealing with fatigue of materials.

Petr Lukáš was a very successful tutor of several PhD students. For six months he was a visiting professor of the University in Karlsruhe in Germany and became an Honorary Member of the German Society called Deutscher Verband für Materialsforschung.

After 1989 Petr Lukáš was massively active in the organization of science on the national level. He substantially contributed to the setting up of the Academy of Sciences in the new political conditions. He was elected vice-president of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and from 1993 he was a member of the Scientific Council of this organization. In the period from 1997 to 2001 he executed the duties of the vice-chairman of this Council. From 2001 to 2012 he served as the Director of the Institute of Physics of Materials.

Lukáš P., Klesnil M., Cyclic stress-strain response and fatigue life of metals in low amplitude region, Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 11/6, pp. 345-356, 1973.

Lukáš P., Klesnil M., Polák J., High cycle fatigue life of metals, Materials Science and Engineering, Vol.15/2-3, pp.239-245, 1974.

Lukáš P., Klesnil M., Fatigue limit of notched bodies, Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 34/1, pp.61-66, 1978.

Lukáš P., Kunz L., Effect of grain-size on the high cycle fatigue behavior of polycrystalline copper, Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 85/1-2, pp.67-75, 1987.

Lukáš P., Kunz L., Effect of mean stress on cyclic stress-strain response and high cycle fatigue life, International Journal of Fatigue, Vol. 11/1 pp. 55-58, 1989.

Klesnil M., Lukáš P., Fatigue of Metallic Materials, Elsevier, 1992.

Lukáš P., Preclík P., Čadek J., Notch effects on creep behaviour of CMSX-4 superalloy single crystals, Materials Science and Engineering A, Vol. 298/1-2, pp. 84-89, 2001.

Lukáš P., Kunz L., Svoboda M., Fatigue notch sensitivity of ultrafine-grained copper, Materials Science and Engineering A, Vol. 391/1-2, pp. 337-341, 2005.

Kunz L., Lukáš P., Svoboda M., Fatigue strength, microstructural stability and strain localization in ultrafine-grained copper, Materials Science and Engineering A, Vol.424/1-2, pp. 97-104, 2006.

Kunz L., Lukas P., Navratilova L., Strain localization and fatigue crack initiation in ultrafine-grained copper in high- and giga-cycle region, International Journal of Fatigue, Vol. 58 pp. 202-208, 2014.