Obituary: Professor Bruce Irons
1984; Wiley; Volume: 20; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1002/nme.1620200615
ISSN1097-0207
Autores Tópico(s)Scientific Research and Discoveries
Resumotogether with his wife Carol, on the 6 December 1983, at the age of 59.The Engineering Community at large and in particular his colleagues, collaborators and students, mourn his departure.He was undoubtedly one of the giants of the 'finite element era' and his name is now widely known to those acquainted with the subject, through the procedures and innovations he has introduced.The Irons 'Patch Test' is, for instance, known as such throughout the literature of engineering and mathematics.Such names as 'Isoparametric', 'Serendipity', 'Frontal solver' and 'Semiloof introduced by his fertile imagination to the finite element vocabulary are now household words and provide a memorial to his works.Bruce Irons was a quiet man with a stroke of genius in his intuitive physical understanding of complex phenomena.He started his engineering career in the Stress Analysis Group of Rolls Royce where many of his innovative ideas germinated-often not understood by his colleagues.Perhaps this lack of understanding was due to his innate characteristic of modesty and of endowing his equals with his own intellectual capabilities, to avoid 'talking down' to them.In the atmosphere of university, which he joined in Swansea in 1966, this was soon changed.He learned to transmit his ideas to students by patience and meticulous explanation.He provided outstanding guidance to research workers involved in finite element computer programming, an art in which he achieved himself a rare degree of perfection.He devoted many hours to
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