Henno Allik, age 65, of Preston, formerly of Ledyard, died Monday afternoon at William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich after a brief illness.
Dr. Allik was born in Kuressaare, Estonia on May 16, 1937 the only child to Ernst and Helmi (Schmidt) Allik. In 1941, he and his parents fled Estonia settling in Germany where they lived in displaced persons camps until emmigrating the the United States in 1949. Dr. Allik became a US citizen in 1955.
He received his Bachelor of Engineering Degree from City College of New York in 1961 and later was granted his PdD. From New York University School of Engineering and Science in 1966.
He was employed at Electric Boat from 1965-1979, and later at Analysis & Technology from 1979-1982.
Dr. Allik was a Principal Engineer at Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN Technologies). In 1983, Dr. Allik presented a paper on the use of Infinite Elements in Structural Acoustics to a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America that led to a major breakthrough in numerical modeling of radiated sound. In the years following this accomplishment, Dr. Allik developed a computer code called SARA (Structural Acoustic Radiation Analyzer) that is now used in Naval Laboratories, several prominent Universities, and industries that provide R & D for the Navy. Recently, he developed a parallel processing version of the code that permits solution of very large structural acoustic problems that were impossible to solve just a few years ago.
Dr. Allik was also the author of numerous papers and reviewer of several textbooks in Finite Element Methods. He along with Dr. Thomas Hughes published a paper on Piezoelectric Finite elements that is considered a seminal contribution to mathematical modeling underwater tranducers. Dr. Allik also developed the TRANS2D computer code for modeling the shock response of underwater structures and the GENSAM computer program for general finite element analysis. GENSAM was developed by Dr. Allik while employed at Electric Boat and was considered to be on of the first finite element codes of existence.
Dr. Allik was a life member of ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers), and enjoyed playing raquetball.
He was married to Judith (Brainard) Allik on May 16, 1981.
In addition to his wife, Dr. Allik leaves two daughters, Karen Welch of Dover, NH and Linda Allik of Groton; two stepchildren, Christopher Wyatt of W. Kingstown, RI and Becky Sullivan of Niantic, and 9 grandchildren.
Dr. Allik’s family will greet relatives and friends at The Dinoto Funeral Home, 17 Pearl Street, Historic downtown Mystic, on Tuesday, Aug. 13th from 6-8pm. A service will be held at the funeral home on Wednesday at 11am.
Donations in Dr. Allik's memory may be made to the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance (NCCRA) 11132 Ventural Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604. (www.nccra.org).