China Vitae

Biography

Li Minhua, female, Han nationality, is a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. She graduated from Southwest China United University. She obtained a doctorate degree from MIT in the USA in 1948.

Li acted as a researcher at the Mechanics Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the study of plastic mechanics, she acquired concise and exact solutions for axis-symmetrical plane stress problems using plastic deformation theory. Li argued applicable conditions meeting plastic deformation theory for such problems as the loading process, and later popularized it to the plane stress problem. Concerning turbine axis (variable cross-section round axis) under torsion action, she put forward new solutions obtained by applying finite difference methods of orthogonal curvilinear coordinates, which can accurately work out the strain of high strain focused areas in the small groove of an axis. Li directed the research of the effect of overload towards low-cycle fatigue life. Through experimental studies on test pieces of lead alloy round hole thin sheets under the action of one fatigue load, she obtained a load scope of load 60 and a fatigue life improved by 3~4 times. She also observed the development of main load sliding belts of overload sliding line obstacles.

Li Minhua was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.