MEN OF TRIBOLOGY' by DUNCAN DOWSON2

8 ROBERT HENRY THURSTON (1839-1903) 9 OSBORNE REYNOLDS (1842-1919) Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/tribology/article-pdf/100/4/455/5607633/455_1.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

8 ROBERT HENRY THURSTON (1839-1903)

Biography Thurston remained at the Stevens Institute of Technology for Robert Henry Thurston was born in Providence, Rhode Island fourteen years, but in 1885 he accepted an invitation from The in the United States of America on October 25th, 1839. His father, Trustees of Cornell University, to organise a course in Mechanical Robert Lawton Thurston, manufactured steam engines in Providence Engineering for the Sibley College of Engineering and Mechanical and provided his son with a workshop training. The young Robert Arts. In due course Albert Kingsbury became one of Thurston's stu­ Henry Thurston went to Brown University, where he graduated as dents and Sibley College developed at an early stage in its history a a Civil Engineer in 1859. He then spent two years working for the firm long standing connection with various aspects of tribology. According 3 in which his father was a senior partner before joining the navy as to Hersey (1966) Thurston held a consultancy with the Pennsylvania officer of engineers in 1861. He served on various vessels throughout Railroad and one aspect of his agreement called for the testing of new the Civil War and was present at the battle of Port Royal and the siege shipments of babbitt for the rolling stock bearings. This was achieved of Charleston. At the end of 1865 he was transferred to the Depart­ by scraping a bearing of the babbitt to fit one of Thurston's testing ment of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the United States machines and then determining the coefficient of friction. Kingsbury, Naval Academy at Annapolis and was for a time acting Head of the who was skilled in machine shop practice, did such a professional Department. He accepted the Chair of Mechanical Engineering at the scraping job that the bearings on which he worked acted in a hydro- new Stevens Institute of Technology in 1870 and was much involved dynamic manner and produced a coefficient of friction lower than in the planning of the curriculum before the Institute opened in the anything Thruston has seen previously. In any event it seems clear autumn of 1871. that Thurston introduced Kingsbury to the subject of bearings and An important feature of his work at the Institute was that it formed lubrication, but the cost was high, since it resulted in the loss of his at that time an unusual combination of research, instruction and consultancy with the railroad when all babbitt bearings suitably commercial work. Most of his work was concerned with the mechan­ scraped henceforth produced the same results! ical properties of materials, but he also initiated his extensive studies Robert Henry Thurston's marriage to his first wife Susan T. of the friction of lubricated surfaces and developed his famous pen­ Gladding of Providence, R.I., lasted from 1865 until her death in 1878. dulum lubricant tester at the Stevens Institute. His recognition of the Two years later he married Leonora Boughton of New York. He died importance of friction and lubrication, both technically and eco­ suddenly on his birthday in Ithaca, N.Y. at the age of 64. nomically, and his individualistic and enthusiastic preaching of the essential features of the.arguments, won him renown on both sides Academic Work and Professional Societies of the Atlantic. His lectures on Friction and Lubrication, published A notable feature of Thurston's life was his energetic involvement by the Railroad Gazette Publication Company of New York in 1879, in writing, teaching, research and the work of Government Com­ were most valuable in drawing attention to the significance of tri- mittees and Professional Institutions. He published some three bological topics in a rapidly developing technological society. His hundred papers in Scientific and Technical Journals. Perhaps his best pragmatic approach did much to stimulate interest in the friction of known contribution to the literature on tribology was his book, written lubricated surfaces and his work was well known to Petrov and Tower whilst he was at the Stevens Institute, on Friction and Lost Work in who, in 1883, were to confirm the fluid-film nature of well lubricated Machinery and Mill Work (1885). The book ran to seven editions, journal bearings. the last one being published in 1903. Thurston represented the United States at an International Ex­ Professor Thurston was an active figure in the American Society position in Vienna in 1873 and he edited four large volumes of reports of Civil Engineers and he was accorded the distinction of nomination on the exhibition for the Government. as the first President of The American Society of Mechical Engineers at the age of 41. He had been instrumental, along with Professor J. E. Sweet and Mr. A. L. Holley, in calling the initial organising meeting 1 Based upon a series of biographical sketches of "Men of Tribology" from a on February 16th, 1880, and his Presidential Inaugural Address was forthcoming book The History of Tribology to be published in 1978 by Longman Group Limited, Longman House, Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex, England. Amer­ ican enquiries to Longman Inc., 19 West 44th Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. 2 Professor of Engineering Fluid Mechanics and Tribology, Institute of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Leeds, England. * I am grateful to Mr. F. R. Archibald for drawing this to my attention.

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Robert Henry Thurston (Reproduced by kind permission of The American Society of Mechanical En­ gineers)

delivered at the First Annual Meeting held in the Union League Friction and Economics Theatre, N,Y., on November 4th and 5th of the same year. He spoke Thurston's approach to engineering problems of the nay was simple with, , .. "much diffidence, although with pride and pleasure" and and convincing. Ifmachines were correctly designed and constructed clearly thought that the honour should have been bestowed upon one they would not experience permanent distortion in performinl( their of the ... veterans of the profession, many of whom are with us in functions and would not therefore cause energy to he dissipated. person, and more of whom are with liS in spirit today." He referred Friction thus emerged as the source of lost work ann illl'{ficiFncy in to what he described as a good saying .. , "Old men for council and machinery. He wrote; young men for war," The object of the Society was ... "the promotion · ... "The study of the laws of friction. the cOllstrllction of its ofthe arts and sciences connected with engineering and mechanical theory, and the experimental investigation ofthe conditiOll,' which construction . .. to publish and circulate papers ofsufficient value determine the loss of efficiency in machinery by frictioll, al'l' thlls .,. and the enlightment ofour national legislators in regard to the obviously of supreme importance to the engineer who desilins, the needs, the wishes and the legal and moral rights of the industrial mechanic who constructs, and the operator or manufacturer who classes in our country." The Presidential Address provided a valuable makes use of machinery." insight into both the aims of the Society and the individual and He argued that it was to the engineer; wide-ranging views of Robert H. Thurston. Reference was made to · ... "a vitally important branch of applied sciellce, ami it is ethics, the importance of the Society for all branches of industry, the coextensive with the application of mechanical sciences." reputation of the United States as the home of all ingenious and ef­ The message is as clear and valid today as it was almost one hundred fective labour saving devices, and aspects of mechanical and scientific years ago; yet it appears that it has to be restated and emphasised for philosophy. It is interesting to note how energetically and successfully successive generations. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers strives to achieve the Thurston backed up his general remarks with painful facts. objectives outlined by Thurston. · ... "The loss of power in mills ranges, with different machines,

456 / VOL 100, OCTOBER 1978 Transactions of the ASME from 5 to 90 percent, averaging for cotton and flax mills about 60 Summary percent with good management, and in woolen mills about 40 per­ Robert Henry Thurston made significant contributions in many cent." fields of engineering activity, but his work on lubricants, lubrication The loss of 50 percent of the available power in overcoming friction and friction alone has brought him great renown. His lectures and his between lubricated surfaces in mills, together with figures ranging book (1885) had a great impact upon late nineteenth century attitudes from 3 to 16 percent in steam engines and about 15 percent in iron- to the subject we now call tribology. His discourse on the nature of working tools provided an adequate motivation for his subsequent friction and lubrication, his comprehensive accounts of the properties evaluation of lubricants. Thurston delivered a series of lectures on of lubricants, his emphasis on the need to test lubricants on appro­ Friction and Lubrication before the Master Car Builders Association priate instruments and machines and his powerful economic argu­ and elsewhere, which were later published in the Railroad Gazette ments to justify consideration of the effect of friction upon machine (1879). A more extensive account of the subject formed the basis of performance established his book as a most important text. his famous book (1885) dedicated to Hirn. The book contained ac­ Thurston's crusade against the evils of friction was recognized not counts of the current understanding of sliding and rolling friction only in the United States but also in Europe and Russia. During his under dry conditions and of friction between lubricated surfaces. The lifetime he became a father figure in mechanical engineering in the concept of dry friction in sliding was linked to the interlocking of United States of America and the founder of studies of bearings, asperities with adhesion receiving scant attention. A most valuable friction and lubrication in that country.

collection of coefficients of friction was presented and this, together Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/tribology/article-pdf/100/4/455/5607633/455_1.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 with an excellent account of lubricants and machines for their eval­ uation, probably represented the greatest merit of the text. Such data Bibliography must have been of immense value to those concerned with the design Thurston, R. H. (1878), "Friction and its Law," Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Vol. and operation of machinery at the end of the nineteenth century. 27, pp. 61-71. Thurston, R. H. (1879), "Friction and Lubrication," The Railroad Gazette, New It appears that Thurston was the first person to recognize clearly York, 212 pp. the transition from what is now known as fluid-film to mixed lubri­ Thurston, R. H. (1880), "President's Inaugural Address," TRANS. ASME, Vol, cation. He wrote; 1, pp. 1-16. .... "The general conclusion that the coefficient of friction de­ Thurston, R. H. (1885), Friction and Lost Work in Machinery and Millwork, creases with increasing pressure must evidently be qualified by the Wiley, New York. (Seventh Edition 1903). Morton Memorial, Stevens Institute of Technology (1895), "Robert Henry undoubted proposition that, with any given condition of the rubbing Thurston, PhD, C.E., U.D., Professor of Mechanical Engineering 1871-1885," surfaces, and with all the conditions unchanged, there must always Morton Memorial to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stevens In­ be ultimately reached a point at which, with increasing pressures, stitute of Technology, pp. 210-217. the limit of bearing power is attained or approached, and the friction Durand, W. F. (1924), Robert Henry Thurston, A Biography, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 297 pp. must exhibit a change of law, the coefficient increasing, beyond that Hersey, M. D. (1966), Theory and Research in Lubrication: Foundations For limit, as the intensity of pressure is augmented." Future Developments, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York.

9 OSBORNE REYNOLDS (1842-1912)

the Chair of Engineering at Owens College, Manchester, dated Biography 1868. Few would deny the pre-eminence of Osborne Reynolds in the field . . . "From my earliest recollection I have had an irresistable liking of lubrication, while many hold him in similar esteem in the wider field for mechanics; and the studies to which I have specially devoted of tribology. Archibald (1955) has described him as the founder of the my time have been mechanics, and the physical laws on which science of lubrication, Barwell (1970) proposed him as the founder mechanics as a science are based. In my boyhood I had the ad­ of modern tribology and Allen (1970) suggested that he was the most vantage of the constant guidance of my father, also a lover of distinguished man ever to occupy a Chair of Engineering in any mechanics, and a man of no mean achievements in mathematics British University. and their application to physics." Osborne Reynolds was born in Belfast on August 23rd 1842. He In 1861, at the age of nineteen, he entered the workshop of Mr. came from a clerical family and both his grandfather and great­ Edward Hayes, a mechanical engineer at Stony Stratford, to begin grandfather had been Rectors of Debach-with-Boulge in Suffolk. His a short apprenticeship. Clearly, Reynolds had developed a strong father, the Rev. Osborne Reynolds, also had a distinguished academic interest in engineering by this time, for the purpose of his year with background, being thirteenth Wrangler in 1837, subsequently a Fellow Mr. Hayes was to obtain practical experience before entering Uni­ of Queens' College, Cambridge, Principal of the Belfast Collegiate versity, or as Mr. Hayes himself expressed it, School, Headmaster of Dedham Grammar School, Essex and finally, . . . "to learn in the shortest time possible how work should be done, in his turn, Rector of Debach-with-Boulge. and, as far as time would permit, to be made a working mechanic Reynolds received his early education from his father, first at before going to Cambridge to work for Honours." Dedham Grammar School and later privately. He developed a strong This workshop experience strengthened Reynolds' resolve to study interest and ability in mathematics in general and mechanics in mathematics and mechanics and the impact of his industrial training particular and the warmth of his appreciation for his father's guidance is reflected by the second extract from his letter of application for the can be seen in the following extract from his letter of application for Manchester Chair.

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Portrall of Osborne Reynolds (1904) by the Hon. John Collier

.... "Having now sufficiently mastered the details of the work­ were occupied, sometimes on a part·time basis, by well established shops, and my attention at the' same time being drawn to various practising engineers. It is therefore particularly relevant to recognise mechanical phenomena, for the explanation ofwhich I discov­ the wisdom of the selectors for the Manchester Chair, many of whom ered that a knowledge ofmathematics was essential, I entered were highly successful men in industry and commerce, in recom­ at Queens' College, Cambridge, for the purpose ofgoing through mending the appointment of such a young and relatively inexperi­ the University course, previously to going into the office ofa civil enced engineer to the post. It must surely rank as one of the most engineer... successful gambles or inspired choices ever made by an appointing Mr. Hayes clearly knew that Reynolds was destined for Cambridge, committee. butSir Horace Lamb (1913) has suggested that the decision to proceed The move to establish the Manchester Chair had its formal origin to the University may have been taken rather suddenly. Reynolds' on December 11th, 1866, when a number of engineers from the had not previously studied Greek, but he nevertheless succeeded Manchester area held a meeting in the Town Hall and resolved ...."by the obstinate labour of a few weeks" .... in reaching the that, standard of the ...."Previous Examination." .... "it is expedient to establish a professorship of civil and 11l('­ Reynolds career at Cambridge was highly successful, for he grad­ chanicaI engineering, together with a special library, a mU.W'(WI uated in 1867 as seventh Wrangler, thereby closely emulating his fa­ of models, a drawing class, etc. in connection with and under ther, and was immediately afterwards elected to a Fellowship at the management of the trustees for the time being of DwellS Queens' College. On leaving Cambridge, Reynolds entered the office College; and that a subscription be at once entered into with a of Mr. John Lawson, of the firm of Lawson and Mansergh, Civil En­ view to raise a sum of £10,000 for this purpose, and for such gineers, of London, but he was to spend only a short time in the capital adjustments as the fund may be adequate to." before being appointed to the newly established Professorship of By 1867 a sum of £9,505 had been raised and the Chair was advertised Engineering in Owens College, Manchester at the age of twenty at a salary of £250 per annum. None of the eighteen applicants were six. deemed to be suitable, but an immigrant from Saxony by the name Most ofthe early Chairs in Engineering in Great Britain and Ireland of Charles Frederick Beyer, who had arrived in Manchester in 18:l4,

458 / VOL 100, OCTOBER 1978 Transactions of the ASME undertook to supplement the salary and the post was readvertised specialisation which was to come afterwards in practice. As an at a stipend not less than £500 per annum. Reynolds was appointed ideal principle this can hardly be gainsaid, although the varied to the chair he was to hold throughout his active life on March 26th ramifications of mechanical science, and the increasing mul­ 1868. Initially the facilities were poor, the Engineering Department tiplicity of subjects, have in more recent times compelled a being accommodated in the stables of a house in Quay Street. The deviation from it." ground-floor stable was converted into a lecture room and the hayloft The debate on this issue continues and it is interesting to speculate above it into a drawing office entered by an outside uncovered wooden on the attitude which Reynolds might have adopted in the current staircase. In 1873 the College moved to Oxford Road, but it was some situation, for there are still many advocates of essentially the same years later that the experimental facilities, including apparatus views. conceived by Reynolds, were recognised to be excellent by the stan­ To the right kind of student his lectures were stimulating if some­ dards of the time. A most valuable account of the life and works of times rather bewildering. He became increasingly convinced that Osborne Reynolds, which includes a full description of the origins and laboratory work should be an essential feature of engineering training history of Owens College, has been presented by Allen (1970). and in due course the Manchester laboratories were noted for their Reynolds was a man of ingenuity and great intellect. Sir Horace excellence. The Whitworth Engineering Laboratory was opened in Lamb (1913) has described the course which he established for his 1888 with several items of apparatus specially designed by Osborne students as being . . . ."remarkable for the thoroughness and com­ Reynolds.

pleteness of the theoretical groundwork." Lamb also remarks that Many who studied engineering at Manchester found the course Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/tribology/article-pdf/100/4/455/5607633/455_1.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 many students felt the course to be too severe and that Reynolds' demanding yet stimulating. They found Osborne Reynolds uncom­ lectures were not always easy to follow. Some support for his latter promising as a teacher yet friendly and kind to his students. Sir J. J. point can be found in the revealing words of Reynolds' most eminent Thomson was to write... student, J. J. Thomson (1936) later Sir Joseph J. Thomson O.M., .... "My personal relations with him when I was a student are a Nobel Laureate, President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity very pleasant recollection; he was always very kind to me, had College, Cambridge. a winning way with him and a charming smile." .... "As I was taking the engineering course, the Professor I had He was described by Edward Fiddes (1937), as ... most to do with in my first three years at Owens was Osborne .... "the kindly and eccentric Professor of Engineering." Reynolds, the Professor of Engineering. He was one of the most An interesting insight into Reynolds' personal qualities is provided original and independent of men and never did anything or by the penultimate paragraph of Sir Horace Lamb's obituary no­ expressed himself like anybody else. The result was that it was tice. very difficult to take notes at his lectures so that we had to trust .... "The character of Reynolds was, like his writings, strongly mainly to Rankine's text books. Occasionally in the higher individual. He was conscious of the value of his work, but was classes he would forget all about having to lecture and after content to leave it to the mature judgment of the scientific waiting for ten minutes or so, we sent the janitor to tell him that world. For advertisement he had no taste; and undue preten­ the class was waiting. He would come rushing into the room sions on the part of others only elicited a tolerant smile. To his pulling on his gown as he came through the door, take a volume pupils he was most generous in the opportunities for valuable of Rankine from the table, open it apparently at random, see work which he put in their way, and in the share of credit which some formula or other and say it was wrong. He then went up he assigned to them in cases of cooperation. Somewhat reserved to the blackboard to prove this. He wrote on the board with his in serious or personal matters, and occasionally combative and back to us, talking to himself, and every now and then rubbed tenacious in debate, he was in the ordinary relations of life the it all out and said that was wrong. He would then start afresh most kindly and genial of companions. He had a keen sense of on a new line, and so on. Generally, towards the end of the lec­ humour, and delighted in startling paradoxes, which he would ture he would finish one which he did not rub out and say that maintain, half seriously and half playfully, with astonishing this proved that Rankine was right after all. ingenuity and resource. The illness which at length compelled To some eminent practical engineers and other friends of the Owen his retirement was felt as a grievous personal calamity by his College who had worked for the creation of the Professorship, the pupils, his colleagues, and by other friends throughout the individual and scientific approach adopted by the first holder of the country." chair induced at first some shade of disappointment. Lamb (1913) mentioned these sentiments in his Royal Society Obituary notice and Reynolds established a distinguished reputation for his original wrote. . . research during the thirty seven years that he held the Manchester chair. Between 1901 and 1903 three volumes of his collected "Papers .... "Few could have forseen at that time how splendidly the on Mechanical and Physical Subjects," which contained most, but appointment was destined to be justified, not only by the dis­ by no means all of his writings, were published by the Cambridge tinguished scientific career for which it served as a base, but also University Press. These volumes have been of great value to subse­ by the succession of students who derived stimulus and inspi­ quent research workers, but the compliment extended by the Syndics ration from the genius of their teacher, and who came after­ of the University Press was also greatly appreciated by Reynolds. Of wards to occupy important positions in professional as well as the 68 collected works more than one third had been communicated in the academical world." to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, thirteen had Osborne Reynolds developed firm views on the form of education been published in the Proceedings of the Philosophical Transactions and training suitable for engineers. Whilst he believed in the need to of the Royal Society, fifteen had been presented to the British As­ relate subjects to the work which engineering students would ulti­ sociation for the Advancement of Science and a further nine had been mately be called upon to undertake, he took great pains to establish published in engineering journals including the Proceedings of the a course in which an understanding of the laws and principles of me­ Institution of Civil Engineers and the Transactions of the Institution chanics and an opportunity to apply these principles to practical of Naval Architects. problems were essential features. The course was systematic, not­ The papers were concerned with a wide range of physical and en­ withstanding the observations on lecturing techniques mentioned gineering problems, but there is a consistency of approach and an earlier, covering the fundamentals of civil and mechanical engineering underlying affinity between many of the topics considered. In many in three years. His emphasis on the fundamentals and unity of the of his writings Reynolds demonstrated his great skill in unravelling subject was noted by Lamb (1913); and explaining a mass of detail in terms of simple, well established .... "On one point he was uncompromising. In his mind all engi­ mechanical principles. He did not hesitate to apply his considerable neering was one, so far as the student is concerned, and the same mathematical skill to this end, although Lamb (1913) has noted fundamental training was required whatever the nature of the that,

Journal of Lubrication Technology OCTOBER 1978, VOL 100 / 459 .... "he sometimes affected, not yet seriously, to despise mathe­ Reynolds is reported to have presented two papers to the 1884 matics." meeting of the British Association in Montreal; one in Section G Nevertheless, Reynolds sought to isolate and demonstrate the es­ (Mechanical Science) entitled "On the Friction of Journals" and the sential physical principles underlying a practical problem and the other in Section A (Mathematical and Physical Societies), "On the careful balance between experimentation and necessary mathematics Action of Lubricant." It is a matter of great regret and considerable is evident in much of his work. He always sought a simple explanation frustration that no record of these papers has been found. A brief and of a phenomenon, although his style of writing has not escaped criti­ tantalising report of these presentations appeared in the Montreal cism.1 Sir J.J. Thomson explained that, Daily Witness of September 3rd 1884. .... "The novelty of his method of approach made his papers very .... "Professor Osborne Reynolds gave a paper on "The Friction hard reading—in fact I think it is probable that some of them of Journals" which was entirely theoretical and only of interest have never been read through by anyone." to the initiated." .... "This paper (On Certain Dimensional Properties of Matter Professor Osborne Reynolds was elected a Fellow of the Royal in the Gaseous State) is very difficult reading, so much so that Society in 1877 and he was awarded a Royal Medal in 1888. He re­ a severe criticism of certain parts of it by Professor G. F. Fitz­ ceived his Honorary Fellowship of Queens' College, Cambridge in 1882 gerald . . . was shown by Reynolds to be based on a wrong in­ and was elected to Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers terpretation of his meaning." in 1883. Two years later the Institution awarded him a Telford Pre­

Reynolds himself was not unaware of the difficulty and on at least mium for his paper on steam-engine indicators. The University of Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/tribology/article-pdf/100/4/455/5607633/455_1.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 one occasion sought the advice of his highly respected friend Sir Glasgow conferred the degree of LL.D. honoris causa on him in George G. Stokes. However, Lamb (1913) has pointed out that when 1884., Reynolds took up a topic on which he had written previously for a By the time Reynolds completed his long memoir on the "Sub- second time, with a view to explaining it to a popular audience, he was mechanics of the Universe," in 1902, illness had already begun to both lucid and forcible. impair his powers of expression. Failing health finally caused him to It is customary today, as indeed it was in the nineteenth century, withdraw from active work and to retire from his Chair in 1905. His to advise research workers to commence their study of a problem with last years were spent in retirement at Watchet, Somerset, where he a thorough review of the literature. There is ample evidence to show died on February 21st 1912 at the age of 69. He was married twice; first that Reynolds kept abreast of the publications of others in the field to a daughter of Dr. Chadwick of Leeds in June of the year in which of mechanics, as the excitement which he experienced on reading he was appointed to the Owens Chair (1868) and then to a daughter Beauchamp Tower's account of his experiments on journal bearings of the Rev. H. Wilkinson, Rector of Otley, Suffolk in December 1881. fortunately demonstrates, but it is also clear that he preferred to keep His first wife died in July 1869 and a son by this marriage died in 1879. his mind unfettered by the views of others once he had decided to Reynolds was survived by three sons and a daughter of his second apply himself to a particular problem. The approach was well de­ marriage. One of his sons graduated at Manchester in 1908 and later scribed by Sir J. J. Thomson, held the Vulcan and Osborne Reynolds Fellowships. .... "When he took up a problem, he did not begin by making a In 1919, Albert Kingsbury of Pittsburg in the United States of bibliography and reading the literature about the subject, but America founded the Osborne Reynolds Research Fellowship in the thought it out for himself from the beginning before reading University of Manchester. . . what others had written about it. There is, I think, a good deal .... "as some recognition of the debt which he owed to Reynolds' to be said for this method. Many people's minds are more alert researches in lubrication." when they are thinking than when they are reading, and less liable to accept a plausible hypothesis which will not bear criticism." Friction Cameron (1966) has expressed some surprise that Reynolds missed Most of Reynolds' publications were in the general field of me­ the direct integration of the trigonometric function [dS/(l + t cosfl)3] chanics with the emphasis being on hydrodynamics. In the field of which occurred in the analysis of journal bearing lubrication, partic­ tribology his name is linked primarily with his classical formulation ularly since the integral had already been given in Todhunter's of the theory of fluid-film lubrication (1886) and his earlier study of standard text book on Integral Calculus published some ten to twelve rolling friction (1875). years previously. Perhaps on this occasion Reynolds' individual ap­ His interest in friction had been aroused long before he undertook proach to research worked to his disadvantage and caused him much his famous work on lubrication. As early as 1873 he discussed the in­ unnecessary labour. fluence of friction upon the work done in giving rotation to the shot Reynolds took a lively interest in the affairs of the Manchester in rifled guns and in the following year he wrote on the efficiency of Literary and Philosophical Society. Many of his papers were first belts as communicators of work. The latter study appears to have presented to the Society and he was the Dalton Medallist in 1903. He provided the essential ingredients for his subsequent work on rolling acted as Secretary to the Society from 1874 to 1883 and he was elected friction. His most comprehensive experimental study was concerned President for the Session 1888-1889. He wrote a fine memorial volume with the determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. for James Prescott Joule, a previous President of the Society for whom A paper worthy of special mention is his delightful explanation of he had the highest admiration, and he was the leading spirit in the the slipperiness of ice. It reflects the excitement of research, the ability movement for the public monument by Gilbert which was placed in of a researcher to utilize observations in one field in the explanation Manchester Town Hall. of phenomena in others, the frankness and modesty of Reynolds and He was also an active participant in the British Association for the the final frustration, when all the concepts have fallen into place, Advancement of Science and he served as President of Section G associated with a realisation that the beautiful and simple truth had (Mechanical Sciences) for the Manchester meeting of 1887. His de­ not been recognized much earlier. In this case it was the chance sliding lightful explanation, which apparently gave great delight to Lord of a hot iron on solder that caused Reynolds to wonder whether the Kelvin, of the drying of the space around a foot placed upon moist low friction encountered by skaters could be attributed to the melting sand on the sea-shore and the wetness of the footprint immediately of ice under pressure and the subsequent lubrication of the skate by afterwards, was presented at the 1885 meeting in Aberdeen in a paper water. It was in 1886, when Beauchamp Tower's experiments on entitled "On the Dilatancy of Media composed of Rigid Particles in friction and his own theory of lubrication were very much in his mind, Contact." that Reynolds took note of the behaviour of hot soldering irons. He convinced himself of the explanation of the slipperiness of ice, eval­ uated the area of skate required to depress the melting point of ice under the weight of a man and noted with obvious satisfaction after 1 See Lamb (1913), p. XIX, Kingsbury (1932) and Cameron (1966), p. 271. waiting in vain for a winter of sufficient severity in England,

460 / VOL 100, OCTOBER 1978 Transactions of the ASME .... "a casual but emphatic statement by Dr. Nansen, in his book Reynolds' theory took the understanding of lubrication to the on Greenland, that at the low temperatures he there encoun­ heights of the tribological landscape. It has retained its dominant tered the ice completely lost its slipperiness." position and ail successful fluid-film bearing design is based upon it. There have been many refinements, but no major modifications for pluid-Film Lubrication almost a century. This in itself reflects the importance of Osborne Osborne Reynolds established the theory of fluid-film lubrication Reynolds' contribution to our subject. jn splendid style and remarkably quickly after the publication of Beauchamp Tower's first report to the Institution of Mechanical Summary Engineers in 1883. This story represents one of the finest examples In this biographical sketch I have endeavoured to convey something of the way in which careful experimental work can provide the stim­ of the genius, personality and humility of Osborne Reynolds. I do not ulus for mathematical analysis which in turn confirms the physical disagree with the assessment of others of his pre-eminent position and nature of the phenomenon and provides a springboard for further this alone justifies the space devoted to the life of this great man. The engineering progress. illustration shown at the beginning of the section is based upon the It is worth noting that this outstanding contribution to tribology portrait-in-oils by the Hon. John Collier painted in 1904 on a com­ followed closely upon Reynolds' famous experiments which revealed mission by a number of Reynolds' scientific friends. This admirable the transition from laminar to turbulent flow in pipes in 1883. Osborne portrait now hangs in the Simon Engineering Laboratories and I am Reynolds read his paper (1886) on the theory of lubrication to The grateful to Professor J. Diamond for making the print available to Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/tribology/article-pdf/100/4/455/5607633/455_1.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Royal Society in February 11th 1886. He first reported the now fa­ me. mous differential equation for pressure in a lubricating film at the Montreal meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Bibliography Science in 1884, only one year after Tower announced that his ex­ Reynolds, 0., (1900-1903), "Papers on Mechanical and Physical Subjects," periments led to the conclusion that a coherent film of lubricant (Collected Works), Vol. I, (1900); Vol. II (1901); Vol. Ill (1903). separated the rotating journal from the bush in a well lubricated Lamb, Sir. H. (1913), "Osborne Reynolds, 1842-1912," Obituary Notices of bearing. The classical paper in 1886 not only contained the basic Fellows deceased, Proc. Roy. Soc. Ser. A, vol. LXXXVIII, pp. XV-XXI. Obituary Notice (1913), "Obituary Notice (on O. Reynolds), "Proc. Inst. Civil differential equation of fluid-film lubrication, but also approximate Engrs., Vol. CXC1, p. 314. solutions for both thrust and journal bearings and a direct comparison Kingsbury, A. (1932), "Optimum Conditions in Journal Bearings," TRANS. between the theoretical predictions and the experimental results ASME, Vol. 54, pp. 123-148. obtained by Beauchamp Tower. It is also a matter of some historical Thomson, Sir. J.J. (1936), Recollections and Reflections, G. Bell and Sons interest that the founder of the modern science of lubrication should Ltd. Fiddes, E. (1973), "Some Teachers at Owens College," Journal of the Uni­ consider it equally important to investigate the viscosity of the veg­ versity of Manchester, No. 1, Vol. 1. etable oil which had sustained the bearings of machinery in general Historic Researches (1944), "Historic Researches: No. II—Friction; Reynolds and locomotives in particular throughout the nineteenth century, as Analysis," The Engineer, July 28,1944, pp. 60-62. it was to expose the beautiful mechanism of fluid-film lubrication. Archibald, F. R. (1955), "Men of Lubrication—Osborne Reynolds," Lubrication Engineering, March-April 1955, pp. 84-85,128-129. The basic mechanism of fluid film lubrication was explained with Cameron, A. (1966), The Principles of Lubrication, Longman Green and Co. great clarity in terms of the physical wedge mechanism in which the Ltd., London. motion of one or both of the surfaces bounding the film entrains lu­ Allen, J. (1970), "The Life and Work of Osborne Reynolds," in Osborne Reynolds and Engineering Science Today, Manchester University Press, 1, bricant in a clearance space having a small taper in the direction of pp. 1-82. motion. The exposure of this fundamental requirement that the Barwell, F. T. (1970), "The Founder of Modern Tribology," in Osborne film-thickness should decrease in the direction of surface motion if Reynolds and Engineering Science Today, Manchester University Press, 10, load-bearing pressures were to be generated, was to provide the pp. 240-263. Centenary Symposium (1970), Osborne Reynolds and Engineering Science foundation of sound design procedures for future generations of en­ Today Manchester University Press (Papers presented at the Osborne Reynolds gineers. Centenary Symposium, University of Manchester, September 1968).

Journal of Lubrication Technology OCTOBER 1978, VOL 100 / 461