Joost Jacques Kalker (25 July 1933 The Hague – 24 April 2006) was a Dutch professor at
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...
, recognized for his contributions to the field of
Contact mechanics
Contact mechanics is the study of the deformation of solids that touch each other at one or more points.Johnson, K. L, 1985, Contact mechanics, Cambridge University Press.Popov, Valentin L., 2010, ''Contact Mechanics and Friction. Physical Pri ...
. Particularly, in the case of railway systems, his results are used for solving wheel-rail contact problems and railway dynamics. The linear elastic coefficients defined in his theory are known as the Kalker Coefficients.
Biography
Joost J. Kalker was born in a Jewish family. Joost J. Kalker and his family were persecuted during the German occupation of The
Netherlands in World War II
Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family re ...
.
Professional work
His PhD dissertation of 1967 was entitled: “On the rolling contact of two elastic bodies in the presence of dry friction”. In his thesis, Kalker proposed the mechanics behind frictional rolling with arbitrary lateral and longitudinal creep and spin. His basic assumption was to divide the contact patch between the two elastic bodies into two areas: adhesion area and sliding area. His theory made possible to calculate both creep forces and spin moment for rolling contact problems. His theory was first confirmed via experimental tests of creep forces conducted in England and Germany. In 1979, Kalker was appointed full professor at
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...
in applied mathematics. Kalker created two software with his theory: CONTACT and FASTSIM. He was member of the editorial board of the Journal Vehicle System Dynamics.
Joost J. Kalker was advisor of six PhD researches: Max Viergever (1980), Francois van Geer (1987), Juergen Jaeger (1992), Gerard Braat (1993), Frédéric Jacques Périard (1998) and Zili Li (2002).
In 1990, he published the book “Three-dimensional Elastic Bodies in Rolling Contact”.
He died at age of 72 due to a heart failure, 24 April 2006.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalker, Joost Jacques
1933 births
2006 deaths
Dutch Jews
20th-century Dutch engineers
Dutch mechanical engineers
Delft University of Technology faculty