Sir Alfred Grenville Pugsley, FRS (13 May 1903 – 9 March 1998) was a British structural engineer. He was born in Wimbledon and studied engineering at

Battersea Polytechnic The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its royal charter in 1966, along with a number of other institutions following recommendations in the Robbins Report. The institut ...

, followed by working as a civil engineering student at Woolwich Arsenal. In 1926 he moved to work in R&D at the

Royal Airship Works Cardington Airfield, previously RAF Cardington, is a former Royal Air Force station in Bedfordshire, England, with a long and varied history, particularly in relation to airships and balloons. Most of the former RAF station is in the parish o ...

at Cardington, Bedfordshire, where he was involved in the development of the R101 airship. In 1931 he transferred to the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough, where he was concerned with the behaviour of aircraft wings. In 1941 he was made head of the structural and mechanical engineering department at RAE and awarded an OBE in 1944. After the Second World War he was appointed Professor of Civil Engineering at the

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

becoming Emeritus Professor in 1968. During this time he developed the concepts of safety in engineering, becoming an authority on metal fatigue in aircraft and the safe design of suspension bridges. He 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 knowledge, including mathemat ...

in 1952. and knighted in 1956. In 1957 he was elected President of the

Institution of Structural Engineers The Institution of Structural Engineers is a professional body for structural engineering based in the United Kingdom. The Institution has over 30,000 members operating in over 100 countries. The Institution provides professional accreditation ...

and in 1968 awarded their Gold Medal "in recognition of his services to the Institution and for originating a general philosophy of structural safety based on a statistical analysis of the probability of failure". In 1968 his report on the

Ronan Point Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire cor ...

disaster, when a system built tower block in London partly collapsed, caused the building industry to review its techniques and procedures. In 1979 he was presented with the

James Alfred Ewing Medal This is an award of the Institution of Civil Engineers in memory of James Alfred Ewing Sir James Alfred Ewing MInstitCE (27 March 1855 − 7 January 1935) was a Scottish physicist and engineer, best known for his work on the magnetic prope ...

by the Institution of Civil Engineers. He wrote a number of books based on his work, including: *''Concepts of Safety in Structural Engineering'' (1951) *''The Theory of Suspension Bridges'' (1957) *''The Safety of Structures'' (1966) *''The Works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel'' (1980) *''The non-linear behaviour of a suspended cable'' (1983)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pugsley, Alfred Grenville, Sir 1903 births 1998 deaths People from Wimbledon, London British structural engineers Presidents of the Institution of Structural Engineers Fellows of the Royal Society Knights Bachelor IStructE Gold Medal winners Alumni of the University of Surrey Engineers from London