William Glanville

Sir William Glanville (born February 1, 1900 in Willesden , Middlesex , † June 30, 1976 in Northwood , Middlesex) was a British civil engineer.

Live and act

Glanville was the son of a small building contractor and studied civil engineering at East London College with a degree in 1922. He then worked in government building research at the Building Research Station (BRS) in East Acton , Middlesex, and later in Garston , Hertfordshire, which was founded in 1921 . First he examined the water permeability of concrete. In 1925 he received his Ph.D. and in 1930 he received a D.Sc. From 1931 onwards, on behalf of the government, he was concerned with new regulations for reinforced concrete structures. To do this, he dealt with almost all aspects of concrete. The report appeared in 1933 and was incorporated into the British standards (Code 114). In 1936 he became assistant director and in 1939 director of the Road Research Laboratory (RRL) in Harmondsworth , Middlesex. There he dealt with concrete roadways and set up a soil mechanics laboratory. During the Second World War he worked in war research in Princes Risborough , Buckinghamshire , and then for the Ministry of Aviation, among other things for airfield runways made of concrete, the development of special transportable taxiways made of bitumen fabric (Prefabricated Bituminised Surfacing, PBS), the development (with Edward Terrell ) of armor made of an asphalt concrete-like mass (plastic armor), for example for merchant ships, and the development of the roll bomb with Barnes Wallis for the attack on German dams. For the latter, he calculated the explosive charge and built test models. He also helped the soil mechanics department, for example, in assessing beaches for landing in Normandy.

After the war he continued his work on the RRL and introduced new test methods. For example, instead of in the laboratory, new road surfaces were tested directly in traffic. In 1965 he retired from RRL and opened an engineering office.

Memberships and honors

He was Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1944), Fellow of the Royal Society (1958) and Companion of the Order of the Bath (1953). In 1950 he became president of the Institution of Civil Engineers . In 1962 he received the gold medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers , of which he was a fellow. From 1940 to 1965 he was on the British Standards Committee and from 1950 to 1965 on the Advisory Board of the Royal Engineers. In 1960 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor ("Sir").

literature

• Baker: William Henry Glanville. February 1, 1900 - June 30, 1976. In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. Volume 23, 1977, pp. 90-113.
• Robert Sharp: Glanville, Sir William Henry (1900–1976). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004.