Farris, Caretta and Ellul to be honored.

Doctors Richard J. Farris, Renato Caretta and Maria D. Ellul will be three of the award winners at the Rubber Division's Science & Technology awards banquet held during the spring meeting at the Hyatt Regency in San Antonio, TX, May 16.

Richard J. Farris will be given the George S. Whitby Award for distinguished teaching and research. He is a distinguished university professor emeritus in the Polymer Science and Engineering Department of the Silvio O. Conte National Center for Polymer Research at the University of Massachusetts.

The award, sponsored by Cabot, honors outstanding international teachers of chemistry and polymer science and recognizes innovative research. Dr. Farris is known for his extraordinary teaching skills and research, such as his experimental contributions involving highly filled systems where his suspension theology experiments delineated a phenomenon known as the Farris effect.

Farris joined the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1974 after spending 15 years at General Tire's Aerojet Solid Propulsion Company. During his tenure at the University, he has graduated 62 Ph.D. students, numerous masters candidates, and hosted dozens of postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists. He has authored over 300 research publications, including 17 patents. His research has had a pronounced effect on the way polymer properties are determined and modeled. His strongest area of expertise is experimental mechanics, combined with a solid foundation in continuum mechanics, thermodynamics and physics. He and his research group have pioneered many new experimental methods to probe basic, but difficult to measure, phenomena. They have utilized data provided by these techniques to model the behavior of polymers and their composites, especially in situations where stresses are self-imposed. These methods continue to form the basis for much of the research conducted in his laboratories.

Renato Caretta, senior vice president and director of advanced research at Pirelli, will be receiving the Fernley H. Banbury Award. Sponsored by Farrel, this award honors innovations of production equipment widely used in the manufacture of rubber or rubber-like articles of importance.

Caretta joined Pirelli in 1953 and has several patents for new equipment for molding and curing tires and for tire assembly. He has served the company as director, car tire design; director of industrial vehicles products; director of industrial engineering; technical director, and since 1997 he has been the director of advanced research and senior vice president.

Caretta helped develop innovative concepts for radical changes in tire production methodologies which resulted in a fully automated tire production method (MIRS). He has guided the implementation of these concepts into a fully operational, automated, highly flexible and modular tire manufacturing plant (MIRS). For flexibility and a seamless production, the ISWG integrated software system was conceived and developed to integrate all phases of tire development from design to process specifications and manufacturing. To integrate the new building technology of tires with the production of the materials needed during manufacturing, Caretta developed an innovative automated rubber compound mixing and processing technology (CCM) which produces all the different types of rubber compounds used in tires on a continuous basis. A specific software, integrated with R&D, allows the control of recipes, mixing and processing conditions.

Approximately 40 patents have been granted in these areas of research. Several other patents on tire tread design and on processing of silica filled rubber compounds have also been granted.

Dr. Maria D. Ellul of Advanced Elastomer Systems will receive the Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award. The award, sponsored by AES, honors significant contributions to the advancement of the chemistry of thermoplastic elastomers.

Dr. Ellul has over twenty five years of industrial experience in various R&D positions. She has been with Sterling Organics, U.K.; Dowty Seals Ltd.; and GenCorp/General Tire-Continental A.G. In 1991 she was hired at Ad-vanced Elastomer Systems, where she is currently the principal scientist and head of the technology advisory board responsible for new TPE research and development. Her primary focus is on advanced characterization and fundamental research on polymer blends. Her research contributions in the field of dynamically vulcanized thermoplastic elastomers (TPVs) cover a broad spectrum. She is distinguished for the identification of new EPDMs, polypropylenes, plasticizers and vulcanization systems and their application in the development of new or improved TPEs. Ellul is noted for the discovery of the co-plasticization of blends of olefinic (EPDM) rubber and semi crystalline thermoplastic (polypropylene) with aliphatic ester plasticizers. She identified economical feed-stocks, such as tall oil acids deriving from pine trees which upon esterification with select alcohols resulted in ester plasticizers with a glass transition temperature of minus 130[degrees]C. Dr. Ellul pioneered the development of new TPEs using polymers made by single-site catalysts such as metallocene. Her recent innovations using vinyl norbornene EPDM, long-chain-branched polypropylene and broad molecular weight polypropylene have solved key deficiencies of TPVs and have resulted in TPVs with lower compression set, improved elasticity and superior processing. The science of her inventions has been translated into technology that is commercially utilized in Santoprene products.

In 1996, Dr Ellul was honored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame in the National Salute to Corporate Inventors. In 1997, was awarded the prestigious Sparks Thomas Award by the Rubber Division. She is the author of over fifty publications and inventor of more than twenty patents. She also serves as associate editor of Rubber Chemistry & Technology and Rubber Reviews.

The awards banquet will be held on May 16, at 7 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency, San Antonio. The Rubber Division will also award the Melvin Mooney Distinguished Technology Award to Dr. Kenneth Castner, and the Sparks-Thomas Award to Dr. Mark Foster (both profiled in the March RW). Tickets are $60 in advance, $65 on-site.