Best Paper Awards to Dr. Fairchild and Dr. Koo, ExxonMobil,

at ISOPE-2004 Toulon Banquet

Toulon, France, May 26, 2004 ¾ The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE) announced co-recipients of its Best Paper Award at the ISOPE-2004 Toulon Banquet:

“Girth Welding Development for X120 Linepipe”

Drs. D.P. Fairchild and M.L. Macia, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co., Houston, Texas, USA; Drs. N.V. Bangaru and J.Y. Koo, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co., Clinton, New Jersey, USA.

“Metallurgical Design of Ultra High-Strength Steels for Gas Pipelines”

Drs. J.Y. Koo, M.J. Luton, N.V. Bangaru, R.A. Petkovic, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co., USA; Drs. D.P. Fairchild, C.W. Petersen, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co., USA; Drs. H. Asahi, T. Hara, Y. Terada, M. Sugiyama, H. Tamehiro, Nippon Steel Corp., Japan; Drs. Y. Komizo, S. Okaguchi, M. Hamada, A. Yamamoto, I. Takeuchi; Sumitomo Metal Industries, Japan.

Both papers were presented at the Thirteenth (2003) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, May 25-30, 2003.

On behalf of Dr. Robert Frederking, Society Award Committee Chairman, Prof. Ronald Knapp, the Society’s 2005-06 president-elect, presented the Award plaques to Dr. Koo and Dr. Fairchild.  Prof. Knapp explained that the Committee, after evaluating 22 nominations, had short-listed 3 papers, on hydrodynamics, structural mechanics and materials. As the paper selected as Best Paper must receive at least 3 evaluations, the Committee then asked a panel of 6 experts in each field for an expert evaluation. Screening through the qualification requirements ¾ originality and significance of the results ¾ and based on the 4 expert evaluations, the Committee recommended  that not one, but two Best Papers  be awarded from the Thirteenth (2003) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference.

Both papers had already been recognized as “superior technology” in the 2003 U.S. Congressional Report. Also, pipelines built with these new materials are already being installed.

Nomination and Evaluation Procedure. Session chairmen, session organizers and editors of the International Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering made their nominations from among the papers presented in the previous year. Only those papers are initially selected that either have already been accepted for Journal publication or are slated for further Journal review. Then a pool of potential judges, who are very knowledgeable in one or more fields of the nominees' topics, or have chaired or co-chaired the particular sessions, ranked the papers in their field(s) on the basis of the originality and significance of the results. (The nominees are naturally excluded from the list of judges.)   The nominated papers represent expertise areas as well as geographic balance.

From the ISOPE Award Committee