Vol.2, No 10, 2000 pp. 1455-1456
VLATKO BRČIĆ
PhD, retired full professor of the Faculty of Civil Engineering
University of Belgrade

In Memoriam

Vlatko Brčić, Ph D, graduate civil engineer and graduate mathematician, retired full professor, deceased on August 22nd, 2000, in Belgrade.
 Professor Brčić was born on September 16th 1919 in Varaždin, where he finished the elementary and grammar school. He enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, at the Department for Theoretical Mathematics, and graduated in June 1942. Having finished his mathe-matical studies, he en-rolled at the Faculty of Civil Engi-neering in Prague, and graduated in 1947.
Professor Brčić started engineering practice as a statics engineer, and in March 1948 he was transferred to the building area of New Belgrade. At that time he lectured in popular courses on civil engineering to the young people helping to build New Belgrade. This can be pronounced to be the beginning of his long pedagogical work. After that, in October 1951, he went to the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Belgrade, where he was elected full lecturing assis-tant for the subject Mechanics.
In October 1956, professor Brčić successfully presented his doctoral dissertation titled "Contribution to the Solution of Plane Problem in the Elasticity Theory", supervised by professor Jacob Hlitchiev, Ph D, who exerted considerable influence on his scientific development. Professor Brčić was elected assistant professor for the subject Numerical Methods in 1957, in 1962 associate professor and, finally, in 1966, he was elected full professor for the subject Strength of Materials.
Professor Brčić remained at the position of full professor for the subject Strength of Materials until his retirement in 1984. During his career he lectured the following subjects: Strength of Materials, Mechanics I and II, Numerical Methods, Structure Testing, Structure Dynamics (postgraduate studies), Structure Dynamics and Stability, Introduction to Continuum Mechanics, at civil engineering and other faculties in Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad, Subotica, Podgorica and Zagreb, both in undergraduate and postgraduate studies.
Professor Brčić was an external associate at the "Jaroslav Černi" Institute, where he worked on experimental structure testing.
During the 1967/68 academic year, professor Brčić was a visiting professor at the Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, invited by the American National Science Foundation. At postgraduate studies in Detroit, he gave lectures on Structure Dynamics and joined the research group for the application of holography methods in experimental structure analysis. This structure analysis in that field was at that time groundbreaking in the world.
From 1969 to 1974 Professor Brčić was taking part as a lecturer at the International Mechanics Centre in Undine, Italy. The texts of these lectures were published as monograph in the Springer edition. From 1961 to 1993 Professor Brčić was a full reviewer for the Zentralblatt fur Mathematik journal. From 1973 he was a member of editorial board of the American periodical Research Mechanics Communications, and from 1978 to 1983 he was a member of the European Mechanics Committee. From 1967 to 1969 he was the dean at the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Belgrade. From 1954 to 1962 he was secretary general, and from 1974 to 1978 the president of Yugoslav Society of Mechanics. From 1973 to 1984 he was the Head of the Mechanics Department at the Mathematics Institute of SANU (Yugoslav Science and Arts Academy), and from 1984 to 1994 he was the editor-in-chief of the Civil Engineering Calendar. Professor Brčić's field of scientific activities encompasses theory of elasticity, linear and non-linear photo-elasticity, holography, structure dynamics, stochastic processes in dynamics, and numerical methods in engineering. Professor Brčić authored 70 published papers, 18 titles of textbook and monographic character, and 13 translated books. He was supervisor to a large number of master and doctoral dissertations.
Professor Brčić left a huge number of published scientific papers, many of which in foreign journals, as well as many published textbooks and translations of several important books from the field of mathematics and mechanics. Last, but not least, Professor Brčić left his students, who experienced "Professor Brčić's school". As a graduate mathematician, our professor most often strived for exact solutions with the application of a suitable mathematical apparatus. It could be said that he exploited this apparatus as much as possible, either in his papers or in his associates' papers, which he supervised. And he had many associates, perceiving them while still students, analyzing and testing them in order to expertly guide them until they reach scientific maturity themselves. This was the way Professor Brčić's school was being created.

Assoc. Prof. Živorad Bojović, Ph D, Civ. Eng. Faculty
(Translated by Veronika Tasić)