John Baker (engineer)

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John Fleetwood Baker, Baron Baker , (born March 19, 1901 in Liscard , Cheshire , † September 9, 1985 in Cambridge ) was a British civil engineer and professor of structural engineering at Cambridge University .

Life

Baker was the son of JW Baker and Emily Westwood. He studied at Cambridge University (Clare College) and then worked at the Department of Aviation on the structures for airships . In 1926 he was an assistant lecturer at University College in Cardiff and in 1928 a researcher at the Building Research Station. After contracting tuberculosis in 1929, he switched to research in steel construction at the Structural Steel Research Committee (SSRC), where problems were encountered with the stress values ​​measured in steel structures, which differed greatly from the theoretical prediction. In Great Britain, Baker developed a load-bearing theory for steel construction, which, in contrast to the previously used design according to the elasticity theory, was based on the plasticity theory . With his students he also propagated the application in other areas of civil engineering.

A couple sleeps in a Morrison indoor shelter

In 1933 he became a professor at Bristol University . From 1939 to 1943 he was a scientific advisor at the Department of Homeland Security and in 1940 (according to his load-bearing theory) developed a protective device inside apartments in the event of a bomb hit, the Morrison indoor shelter (named after the then Secretary of Homeland Security), which was produced in large numbers. From 1943 he was professor of mechanics and head of the engineering faculty at Cambridge University. A building at the institute (Baker Building), designed according to Baker's load-bearing theory and opened in 1952, is named after him. In 1968 he retired. Baker has also served on the board of several companies.

In 1963 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh . In 1977 he was awarded the British title of Baron Baker , of Windrush in the County of Gloucestershire , for life ( Life Peerage ) . He also received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and the 1953 Institution of Structural Engineers' second gold medal .

He was married to Fiona Mary MacAlister Walker since 1928 and had two daughters.

Fonts

  • with Alfred Pippard : The Analysis of Engineering Structures , London, E. Arnold 1937, 4th edition 1968
  • The steel skeleton , Volume 1 (Elastic Design), Cambridge University Press 1954, Volume 2 (Plastic Design) with Heyman, Horne, Cambridge University Press 1956
  • with Heyman: Plastic design of frames , 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press 1969, 1971, new edition 2008

literature

Web links

References

  1. ^ After Kurrer, he also attended a conference in Germany in 1936, where similar developments had been going on for a long time, for example at Hermann Maier-Leibnitz in the experimental field and by Josef Fritsche and Karl Girkmann on the theoretical level, and got ideas there. The Hungarian Gábor von Kazinczy made the first approaches to the load capacity method in 1914 .
  2. ↑ For example in soil mechanics, where Kenneth Harry Roscoe was his student. Another well-known student was Jacques Heyman .
  3. ↑ He later used the design as an example in his lectures, as did the steel railway bridge over the Firth of Forth .
  4. ↑ Baker later wrote a book on these developments Enterprise versus bureaucracy: the development of structural air-raid precautions during the 2nd World War , Oxford, Pergamon Press 1978
personal data
SURNAME Baker, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baker, John Fleetwood, Baron Baker (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British civil engineer and professor of structural engineering
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Liscard , Cheshire
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1985
Place of death Cambridge