Richard V. Southwell

Sir Richard Vynne Southwell (born July 2, 1888 in Norwich , † December 9, 1970 in Nottingham ) was a British engineer for mechanics.

Southwell studied engineering mechanics and applied mathematics at Cambridge University , where he graduated in 1912 in both the mathematical and mechanics Tripos exams with top marks. In 1914 he became a Fellow of Trinity College and a lecturer in mechanics. His career was interrupted by World War I, where he worked on airships and then in the aerodynamics department of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough . From 1919 he continued his studies at Cambridge and then worked in the aeronautical research department of the National Physical Laboratory . He stayed there until 1925 and developed rigid-frame airships. In 1925 he became a lecturer at Cambridge and from 1928 to 1942 professor of engineering at Oxford University , where he was a fellow of Brasenose College. Southwell was Rector of Imperial College London from 1942 to 1948 . Then he was again a professor at Cambridge.

Southwell is known for the development of the relaxation method for the calculation of statically often indeterminate systems (initially for the trusses of airships). The method also found general use in the solution of partial differential equations, for example in theoretical physics (which Southwell also dealt with and wrote a book about). It was based on an iteration process and at that time still had to be laboriously calculated by hand. Some of the methods used by Southwell and his co-workers to make the work easier, such as the use of several different grids, also found multiple applications in later computer implementations (multi-grid method).

In 1925 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society . In 1959 he received the Tymoshenko Medal and he has received multiple honorary doctorates (Brussels, Bristol, St. Andrews, Belfast, Glasgow, Sheffield). In 1941 he received the Worcester Reed Warner Medal from ASME and in 1964 the Elliott Cresson Medal. In 1943 he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences . In 1948 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor .

Fonts

• Introduction to the theory of elasticity for engineers and scientists , Oxford University Press 1934, 2nd edition 1941
• On the calculation of stresses in braced frameworks , Proc. Roy. Soc. A, Volume 139, 1933, pp. 475-508
• Stress calculation in frameworks by the method of systematic relaxation of constraints , Part 1,2, Proc. Roy. Soc. A, Volume 151, 1935, pp. 56-95, Volume 153, 1935, p. 41
• Relaxation methods in engineering science: a treatise on approximate computation , Oxford University Press 1940
• Relaxation Methods in Theoretical Physics, a continuation of the treatise, Relaxation methods in engineering science , Oxford University Press, 1946

literature

• Karl-Eugen Kurrer The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium , Ernst & Sohn 2018, p. 820f and p. 1063 (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9 .