Theodore von K�rm�n

Theodore von K�rm�n (May 11, 1881 - May 6, 1963) was an engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics during the seminal era in the 1940s and 1950s. He is personally responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.

He was born in Budapest, Hungary as Karman Todor, studied engineering at the city's Royal Technical University, graduating in 1902, then received his doctorate from the University of G�ttingen in 1908. He taught at G�ttingen for four years, but became fascinated by flight after seeing one, and in 1912 took a job as director of the Aeronautical Institute at the University of Aachen. He stayed there until 1930 (interrupted by service in the Austro-Hungarian army 1915-1918, where he designed an early helicopter).

Apprehensive about developments in Europe, in 1930 he accepted the directorship of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and emigrated to the United States. In 1936, with Frank Malina he founded a company Aerojet to manufacture JATO rocket motors.

In 1944 he helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (now a part of NASA, and became the first chairmain of the Scientific Advisory Group in 1946, which studied aeronautical technologies for the Army Air Force. He also helped found AGARD, the NATO aerodynamics research oversight group (1951), the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (1956), the International Academy of Astronautics (1960), and the von Karman Institute in Brussels.

K�rm�n's fame was in the use of mathematical tools to study fluid flow, and the interpretation of those results to guide practical designs. He was instrumental in recognizing the importance of the swept-back wings that are ubiquitous in modern jet aircraft.

Specific contributions include theories of non-elastic buckling, unsteady wakes in circum-cylinder flow, stability of laminar flow, turbulence, airfoils in steady and unsteady flow, boundary layers, and supersonic aerodynamics.

He made additional contributions in other fields, including elasticity, vibration, heat transfer, and crystallography. His name appears in at least the following concepts:

von K�rm�n vortex street (flow past cylinder)
Prandtl-von K�rm�n law (velocity in open channel flow)
von K�rm�n integral equation (boundary layers)
K�rm�n-Pohlhausen parameter (boundary layers)
K�rm�n-Treffz transformation (airfoil theory)
K�rm�n-Nikuradse correlation (viscous flow)
Chaplygin-K�rm�n-Tsien approximation (potential flow)
Falkowich-K�rm�n equation (transonic flow)
von K�rm�n-Tsien compressibility correction
von K�rm�n ogive (supersonic aerodynamics)
Born-von K�rm�n lattice model (crystallography)

Books

Aerodynamics - Selected Topics in the Light of their Historical Development, (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1954).
Collected Works, (4 Volumes), Von Karman Institute, Rhode St. Genese, 1975 (limited edition book); also Butterworth Scientific Publ, London 1956. (Many papers from vols. 1 and 2 are in German.)
From Low Speed Aerodynamics to Astronautics, (Pergamon Press, London, 1961).
(with L. Edson) The Wind and Beyond - Theodore von K�rm�n Pioneer in Aviation and Pathfinder in Space (Little Brown, 1967).

References

S. Goldstein, "Theodore von K�rm�n, 1881-1963", Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 12 (1966), 335-365.
D. S. Halacy Jr, Father of Supersonic Flight: Theodor von K�rm�n (1965).
M. H. Gorn, The Universal Man: Theodore von K�rm�n's Life in Aeronautics (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, 1992).
G. Gabrielli, "Theodore von K�rm�n", Atti Accad. Sci. Torino Cl. Sci. Fis. Mat. Natur. 98 (1963/1964), 471-485.
J. L. Greenberg and J. R. Goodstein, "Theodore von K�rm�n and applied mathematics in America", Science 222 (4630) (1983), 1300-1304.
J. L. Greenberg and J. R. Goodstein, "Theodore von K�rm�n and applied mathematics in America", A century of mathematics in America II (Providence, R.I., 1989), 467-477.
R. C. Hall, "Shaping the course of aeronautics, rocketry, and astronautics: Theodore von K�rm�n, 1881-1963", J. Astronaut. Sci. 26 (4) (1978), 369-386.
J. Pol�sek, "Theodore von K�rm�n and applied mathematics" (Czech), Pokroky Mat. Fyz. Astronom. 28 (6) (1983), 301-310.
W. R. Sears, "Some recollections of Theodore von K�rm�n", J. Soc. Indust. Appl. Math. 13 (1965), 175-183.
W. R. Sears, "Von K�rm�n: fluid dynamics and other things", Physics today 39 (1986), 34-39.
F. L. Wattendorf, "Theodore von K�rm�n, international scientist", Z. Flugwiss. 4 (1956), 163-165.
F. L. Wattendorf and F. J. Malina, "Theodore von K�rm�n, 1881-1963", Astronautica Acta 10 (1964), 81.