Richard V. Southwell

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

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

Southwell is known for the development of the relaxation method for calculating static often indeterminate systems (initially in the trusses of airships ). The method was also commonly used in the solution of partial differential equations, for example, in theoretical physics ( what Southwell also addressed and wrote a book ). It was based on an iteration and then still had to be laboriously counted by hand. Some of the most used in this case to ease the workload of Southwell and his staff procedures such as the use of several different grating was used widely ( multigrid ) in later Computer implementations.

In 1925 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1959 he received the Timoshenko Medal, and he was much honorary doctorates (Brussels, Bristol, St Andrews, Belfast, Glasgow, Sheffield ). In 1941 he received the Worcester Reed Warner Medal of ASME and 1964, the Elliott Cresson Medal. In 1943 he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He was knighted.

Writings

• Introduction to the theory of elasticity for engineers and scientists, Oxford University Press 1934, 2nd edition 1941
• On the calculation of stress 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, Vol 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