Education

Ben Jonker (1946) received his MSc in Mechanical Engineering from University of Technology at Eindhoven in 1976 and his Ph.D (cum laude) at Delft University of Technology in 1988 with a thesis entitled “Finite element dynamic analysis of flexible spatial mechanisms and manipulators”. Advisors: prof.dr.ir. J.F.Besseling and prof.ir. O.H.Bosgra.

Employment record

During 1968-1971 he worked at NKM (Nederlandse Kraanbouw Mij.) in Utrecht, Holland. Here he was involved in the design and structural analysis of heavy box girder cranes.

In 1971 he went to the Technical University in Eindhoven to study mechanical engineering. As student with full-time job he worked as a programmer at the Automath project. Automath is a language devised by Prof.N.G. the Bruijn in the late sixties in order to represent mathematical proofs by a computer.

In 1976 he started as Research Engineer at the Ultra Centrifuge Laboratory of UCN/Urenco in Amsterdam where he worked on the crash dynamics of high speed centrifuges.

In 1980 he switched from industry to academia when he became Senior Lecturer at the Laboratory of Engineering Mechanics of Delft University of Technology with research activities on multibody system dynamics. He had a leading role in the development of the SPACAR simulation software package for flexible multibody systems.

In 1988 he moved to the Thermal Engineering Laboratory of the University of Twente where he worked on the development and validation of computer codes for fluid-structure interaction in rotating flow machinery.

In 1996 he was appointed as full professor and head of the laboratory of Mechanical Automation and Mechatronics at Twente University. Until his retirement in 2011 he worked on multibody system dynamics with regard to engineering design principles, modeling for design, control and simulation with a broad variety of engineering applications ranging from (nano) motion systems to robotics and compliant mechanisms.

Among his PhD students were Ramin Badie (1993), Marcel Ellenbroek (1994), Tom van Essen(1995), Frank Visser(1996), Bart van Esch (1997), Marijn van Os (1998), Paul de Wit (1998), Gert-Willem Romer (1999), Erwin Schrijver (2002), Sjoerd Postma (2003), Gerard Nijsse (2006), Benno Aalderink (2007), Menno de Graaf (2007), Rob Waiboer (2007), Toon Hardeman (2008), Wouter Hakvoort (2009), Dimitrios Iakovou (2009), Tjeerd van der Poel (2010), Steven Boer (2013). He has also been a supervisor of more than 200 MSc courses.

He is still involved in several activities within the Precision Engineering group, which was created in 2016 from the Mechanical Automation and Mechatronics laboratory.

Professional memberships

Program Council of M2i (Materials innovation institute), 1993–2010.

IFToMM Technical Committee for Robotics and Mechatronics. Member 1998–present.

Advisory Board: Multibody System Dynamics. Member, 2007–present.