SWIEET sponsored this year’s Zienkiewicz Lecture, which was given by Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff FRS of Nottingham University on the subject of Supercriticality: From Blue Fluid to Green Chemistry.Supercritical fluid phenomena was discovered in the 1890s but has only relatively recently taken off in industrial processes. It was held on Wednesday, 20th November in the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, to large and distinguished audience. After the lecture was a bustling reception and later an excellent formal dinner. Thus, a very grand event to celebrate the achievements and memories of the remarkable Swansea civil engineer Olek Zienkiewicz (1921-2009).
Zienkiewicz’s civil engineering led him to pioneering research and applications of the finite element method for computational modelling structures in the early 1960s. He devoted his professional life to developing the methods, educating countless engineers in its use, many of whom had outstanding careers, and tackling difficult problems. The breadth and depth of Computational Engineering research and applications at Swansea is testament to the power of great ideas in engineering.