Harold Malcolm Westergaard

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Harold Malcolm Westergaard

Harold Malcolm Westergaard (born October 9, 1888 in Copenhagen as Harald Malcolm Westergaard , † June 22, 1950 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) ) was a Danish-American civil engineer.

Westergaard came from a family of professors and studied civil engineering at the Polytechnic in Copenhagen , graduating in 1911. Asger Skovgaard Ostenfeld was one of his teachers . He then went into construction practice and gained experience with reinforced concrete in Copenhagen, Hamburg and London before going to the University of Göttingen , where he was a student of Ludwig Prandtl . His dissertation at the TH Munich with August Föppl was already finished in 1915 when the First World War prevented further studies. The oral examination took place in 1921, but the doctorate could only take place after the dissertation was published in 1925 ( application of the statics to the adjustment calculation ). In the meantime Westergaard had gone to the United States and received his doctorate (Ph. D.) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1916 . He was then a lecturer there , from 1921 Assistant Professor, 1924 Associate Professor and 1927 Professor . In 1936 he became Gordon McKay Professor of Engineering Mechanics at Harvard University . From 1937 to 1946 he was dean of the Graduate School of Engineering.

In 1921 he published a paper with WA Slater on the theory of reinforced concrete slabs and received the Wason Medal from the American Concrete Institute . In 1926 he examined concrete roadways, which soon became part of standardization.

In 1930 he published on the history of structural structures. As an advisor to the US Bureau of Reclamation, he accompanied the construction of the Hoover Dam , which he published in 1933. He also advised the US Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks and the US Bureau of Public Roads . During World War II he was a commander in the Civil Engineering Corps of the US Navy . He examined the structural damage after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

In his later research he turned to basic mechanical questions such as fracture mechanics.

In 1937 Westergaard was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , since 1942 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society .

Fonts

  • with WA Slater: Moments and stresses in slabs, Proc. American Concrete Institute, Vol. 17, 1921, pp. 415-538
  • Buckling of elastic structures, Transactions of the ASCE, Vol. 85, 1922, pp. 576-634
  • Computation of stresses in concrete roads, Proc. Highway Research Board, Vol. 5, 1926, pp. 90-112
  • Stresses in concrete pavements computed by theoretical analysis, Public Roads, Volume 7, 1926, pp. 25-35
  • One hundred years of advance in structural mechanics, Transactions of the ASCE, Volume 94, 1930, pp. 226-246
  • Computation of the stresses in bridge slabs due to wheel loads, Public Roads, Volume 11, 1930, pp. 1-23
  • Water pressure on dams during earthquakes, Transactions of the ASCE, Volume 98, 1933, pp. 418-472
  • General solution of the problem of elastostatics of an n-dimensional isotropic elastic solid in an n-dimensional space, Bulletin of the AMS, Volume 41, pp. 695-699
  • Bearing pressures and cracks, J. Appl. Mech., Vol. 6, 1939, pp. 49-53
  • Theory of elasticity and plasticity, Harvard UP 1952

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter W. (PDF; 852 kB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved February 8, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Member History: Harald Malcolm Westergaard. American Philosophical Society, accessed November 17, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Westergaard, Harold Malcolm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Westergaard, Harald Malcolm (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish-American civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1950
Place of death Cambridge, Massachusetts