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Iain Finnie passed away

Submitted by Mike Prime on
mechanician

Iain Finnie passed away in December. At the time he was the James Fife Professor Emeritus U.C. Berkeley Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.



Iain had an amazing number of contributions spanning diverse area of mechanics. To the best of my recollection:



He published some great early work on the shear angle in metal cutting in 1953.

He published the first book on creep in 1959 with William Heller.

He published a (the?) pioneering paper on erosion in 1960.

He published some great work on fracture and the directional stability of cracks in the 70’s

He invented the crack compliance method for measuring residual stress in 1986.



Some bio info:

B.Sc. U. Glasgow 1949

“Galloping conductors,” (M.S.) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1950. Supervised by J. P. Den Hartog.

“The shear and friction processes in the cutting of metals” Thesis (Sc. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1953, Supervised by Milton C. Shaw.

Guggenheim Fellow 1967

National Academy of Engineering 1979

    Contributions in high temperature design, erosion, and brittle fracture of materials.

ASME Nadai Medal 1982

ASME Honorary Member 1983

Berkeley Medal 1993