George R. Irwin

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George Rankin Irwin (born February 26, 1907 in El Paso (Texas) , † October 9, 1998 ) was an American engineer. In the USA he is considered the father of fracture mechanics.

Irwin grew up in Springfield, Illinois , studied at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, with a bachelor's degree in English in 1930. He then studied physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , where he received his doctorate in 1937 (on the Isotope ratio for lithium). From 1937 to 1967 he was at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC There he began to study the ballistics and behavior of armor under fire with fracture mechanics during World War II. He continued this at the NRL after the war. He was head of the ballistics department there and in 1950 he became head of the mechanics department there. During World War II, he began developing non-metallic armor to prevent splinters from forming, which was particularly popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

He expanded the classic work of Alan Arnold Griffith on cracking from the 1920s, which had been developed for glasses and ceramics, with the help of plasticity theory to materials on metals. He introduced the Stress Intensity Factor and the Critical Stress Intensity Factor (KIC), a material constant. He has chaired several committees of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). He was also an honorary member of the ASTM. From 1947 he developed techniques that were later used around the world for crack detection and monitoring in the aircraft industry and, for example, in nuclear reactors.

From 1967 he was a professor at Lehigh University (Boeing University Professor), where he worked with Paul C. Paris , especially with cracks in aircraft. After his retirement in 1972, he conducted research at the University of Maryland in College Park, in particular on dynamic crack formation and the consequences of coolant loss in nuclear reactors.

In 1986 he received the Timoshenko Medal , the Grand Medal of the French Metallurgical Society and the Tetmajer Medal of the Vienna University of Technology. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society .

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personal data
SURNAME Irwin, George R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Irwin, George Rankin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American engineer
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH El Paso, Texas
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1998