John Ffowcs Williams
John (Shôn) Eirwyn Ffowcs Williams (born May 25, 1935 in Wales ) is a British engineer. He achieved particular fame in the field of aeroacoustics , u. a. by the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) equation, the description of an acoustic analogy , formulated together with one of his students, David L. Hawkings .
Shôn had two brothers. When he was five years old, his mother died. With no knowledge of English, he was sent to a Quaker school in North Yorkshire . At the age of 16 he left school to do a mechanical engineering internship at Rolls-Royce . He was interested in turbomachines from an early age. His other stations were u. a. the University of Southampton , the Imperial College in London, where he held the Rolls-Royce Chair in Theoretical Aeroacoustics, and the University of Cambridge , where from 1972 until his retirement he headed the Chair in Engineering with a focus on acoustics. In 1989 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
During his teaching activities, it was always particularly important to him to align scientific research and teaching with industrial problems. He was therefore always involved in industry; z. B. founded the Cambridge company Topexpress Ltd., a consultancy specializing in acoustic problems in technology, was a senior consultant at Rolls-Royce and director of the marine technology developer VSEL plc.
He achieved particular fame in numerical aeroacoustics through the formulation of an acoustic analogy based on Lighthill's theory , which allows the sound generated by any body in a flow to be traced back to a combination of monopole, dipole and quadrupole sources. He also achieved a certain level of awareness for his leading role in reducing the noise generated by Concorde engines.
literature
- Ffowcs Williams, JE and Hawkings, DL: Sound Generation by Turbulence and Surfaces in Arbitrary Motion . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. A264, No. 1151, 1969, pp. 321-342
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ffowcs Williams, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ffowcs Williams, John Eirwyn; Ffowcs Williams, Shôn Eirwyn |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British engineer, professor of engineering |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 25, 1935 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wales |