BIOT M

BELGIUM (see also List of Individuals)

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25.5.1905 Antwerpen/B - 12.9.1985 /USA

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Maurice Biot graduated from Louvain University in 1927 and there submitted in 1931 a PhD thesis. He also received a PhD at the California Institute of Technology Caltech in 1932 and then held teaching positions at Harvard University from 1934-1935, back at Louvain University until 1937, at Columbia University until 1945 and then until 1952 at Brown University, New York. From then until 1970 he was a consultant for various large American firms and later returned to Belgium, yet passed away during a trip to the USA. He was extensively decorated, such as a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics in 1948, Member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences in 1962, and Member of the US Academy of Engineering in 1967.

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Biot met Theodor von Karman (1881-1963) first in 1931 when starting at Caltech and becoming interested in applied mechanics, resulting in their common, popular 1940 book. Later, Biot expanded his knowledge by significant contributions to acoustics, electromagnetism, heat transfer, thermodynamics, geophysics and aeronautics. The level of his works ranged from the highly theoretical and mathematical to practical applications and patented inventions. Aeronautical phenomena took Biot's interest between 1940 and 1950, during which he developed the three-dimensional theory of wing oscillations using a matrix approach and employing generalized coordinates. He also presented research on unsteady aerodynamic problems and proposed methods for determining the forces acting on an airplane. He in addition investigated the wing behavior under supersonic conditions and determined the corresponding wing resistance. From 1950, he left these problems to consider mainly research in soil mechanics and heat transfer. The 1965 book summarized the results in soil mechanics.

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_{Karman, T. von, Biot, M.A. (1940). Mathematical methods in engineering: An introduction to the mathematical treatment of engineering problems. McGraw-Hill: New York.}

_{Biot, M.A. (1956). The divergence of supersonic wings including chordwise bending. Journal Aeronautical Sciences 23(3): 237-251.}

_{Biot, M.A. (1965). Mechanics of incremental deformations: Theory of elasticity and viscoelasticity of initially stressed solids and fluids. Wiley: New York.}

_{Biot, M.A. (1970). Variational principles in heat transfer: A unified Lagrangian analysis of dissipative phenomena. Clarendon Press: Oxford.}

_{Thimus, J.-F. ed. (1998). Poromechanics - A tribute to Maurice A. Biot. Proc. Conference at Louvain-la-Neuve. Balkema: Rotterdam. http://www.mcs.le.ac.uk/%7Ecdc6/BIOT/biography.html http://www.mcs.le.ac.uk/BIOT Mcdc6/BIOT/biography.html P}