John Douglas Eshelby FRS (21 December 1916 – 10 December 1981) was a scientist in

micromechanics Micromechanics (or, more precisely, micromechanics of materials) is the analysis of composite or heterogeneous materials on the level of the individual constituents that constitute these materials. Aims of micromechanics of materials Heterogeneo ...

. His work has shaped the fields of defect mechanics and micromechanics of inhomogeneous solids for fifty years and provided the basis for the quantitative analysis of the controlling mechanisms of plastic deformation and fracture.

Early life and education

Eshelby was born at

Puddington, Cheshire Puddington is a village and civil parish on the Wirral Peninsula, in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is located to the south east of the town of Neston and close to the border ...

, the son of Captain Alan Douglas Eshelby and Phoebe Mason Hutchinson. He was educated at St Cyprian's School,

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...

and was due to go to

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

but developed rheumatic fever and received his secondary education privately at home. At about this time the family moved to Manor House at Farrington Gurney, Somerset where his tutors were the village schoolmaster and a local clergyman. He relied extensively on self-instruction and obtained a place in the Physics Department of

Bristol University , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

and was awarded a first class honours in physics in 1937. He then worked in a research laboratory under H W B Skinner and W Sucksmith on magnetism and the soft X-ray spectra of solids.

Research and career

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Eshelby began working for the Admiralty on the degaussing of ships, but on 4 May 1940 he joined the Technical Branch of the Royal Air Force. His work from February 1941 to June 1942 was for the Coastal Command Development Unit conducting performance trials of

Air-to-Surface Vessel radar Radar, Air-to-Surface Vessel, or ASV radar for short, is a classification used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) to refer to a series of aircraft-mounted radar systems used to scan the surface of the ocean to locate ships and surfaced submarines. The fi ...

and other operational devices in all types of aircraft. He was then involved in radar work, from August 1942 to February 1943 with 76 signals wing and from February 1943 to September 1944 at the radar establishment at Malvern. He was then transferred to disarmament work and then to the Air Historical branch in September 1945. He left the RAF as a squadron leader on 4 October 1946. After the war Eshelby returned to Bristol University to study for a PhD and taught himself the theory of elasticity for his thesis on "Stationary and moving dislocations". He obtained his PhD in 1950 under

Nevill Mott Sir Nevill Francis Mott (30 September 1905 – 8 August 1996) was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors. ...

. In 1951 he moved to the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

as a Research Associate, where he stayed until 1953 when he was appointed a lecturer at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

, where he taught from 1953 to 1964 at the Department of Metallurgy. During this time, he worked on point defects and dislocations, developing the method of 'transformation strains' and studying the Eshelby inclusion problems for the first time, as well as the study of forces on elastic singularities. In 1964 he moved to the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

at the behest of Neville Mott, and was a Fellow of

Churchill College Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities. In 1958, a trust was establish ...

from 1965 to 1966. He was then appointed Reader in the Faculty of Materials (Theory of Materials) at the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

, where he became Professor in 1971.

Personal life and Death

Eshelby was clear and amusing as a lecturer, and prepared his lectures with great care, but was not keen on doing experimental work. He was well versed in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

(among other classical languages) and was an avid second-hand book buyer. Eshelby died on 10 December 1981.

Awards and honours

Eshelby was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in March 1974. He was awarded the

Timoshenko Medal The Timoshenko Medal is an award given annually by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to an individual "in recognition of distinguished contributions to the field of applied mechanics." The Timoshenko Medal, widely regarded as th ...

in 1977. In 2012, the

Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty The Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty, launched in 2012, is given annually to rapidly emerging junior faculty who exemplify the creative use and development of mechanics. The intent of the award is to promote the field of mechanics, especial ...

and the Eshelby Memorial Bursary was founded in his memory. was launched to commemorate the memory of Eshelby. The award is given annually to rapidly emerging junior faculty who exemplify the creative use and development of mechanics, and awardees are formally recognised at the annual

Applied Mechanics Division The Applied Mechanics Division (AMD) is a division in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The AMD was founded in 1927, with Stephen Timoshenko being the first chair. The current AMD membership is over 5000, out of about 90,000 mem ...

Banquet at the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

' International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (ASME-IMECE) meeting.

Legacy

Eshelby work has shaped the fields of defect mechanics and micromechanics of inhomogeneous solids for fifty years and provided the basis for the quantitative analysis of the controlling mechanisms of plastic deformation and fracture.The scientific phenomenon called

Eshelby's inclusion In continuum mechanics, Eshelby's inclusion problem refers to a set of problems involving ellipsoidal elastic inclusions in an infinite elastic body. Analytical solutions to these problems were first devised by John D. Eshelby in 1957.Eshelby (1 ...

is named after this scientist, and points at an ellipsoidal subdomain in an infinite homogeneous body, subjected to a uniform transformation strain.

Selected publications

* ''A Tentative Theory of Metallic Whisker Growth'' University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Received 4 June 1953 The American Physical Society * * * * Collected Works of J. D. Eshelby, Mechanics of Defects and Inhomogeneities, Springer (2006),

Xanthippi Markenscoff Xanthippi Markenscoff is a Greek-American mechanical engineer specializing in the dynamics of defects and dislocations in materials, including Eshelby's inclusion; other topics in her research have included grasping and fixturing, and the relat ...

and Anurag Gupta (Eds.) * J. D. Eshelby, "The continuum theory of lattice defects," in: F. Seitz and D. Turnbull (eds.), Progress in Solid State Physics, Vol. 3, Academic Press, New York (1956), pp. 79–303.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eshelby, John D. 1916 births 1981 deaths People from Cheshire British materials scientists Fellows of the Royal Society Academics of the University of Bristol People educated at St Cyprian's School Metallurgists