Obituary of Alan Garnett Davenport (1932–2009)
✍ Scribed by Nicholas Isyumov
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2009
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 136 KB
- Volume
- 97
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0167-6105
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The wind engineering community mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished members. Alan Davenport passed away on July 19, 2009 due to complications resulting from Parkinson's disease. His many friends, colleagues and students joined his wife Sheila, his children, grandchildren and relatives to mark their loss and to celebrate Alan's life on July 23. This ceremony was held at the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory of the University of Western Ontario. Alan founded this laboratory in 1965 and was its Director throughout its heyday years. There were many tributes to mark Alan's achievements as an outstanding researcher, a respected and admired educator, a great engineer, an innovator and above all a compassionate and sensitive human being-and what a productive and wonderful life it was.
Alan completed undergraduate engineering studies at Cambridge, a M.A.Sc. at the University of Toronto and then continued with a Ph.D. at the University of Bristol, where he studied with Sir Alfred Pugsley. His Ph.D. research (1961) examined the response of suspension bridges to the buffeting action of turbulent wind. Alan's probabilistic approach set a new