MCNOWN

SWEDEN (see also List of Individuals)

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15.1.1916 Kansas City/USA - 17.2.1998 Lidingo/S

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John Stephenson McNown graduated as a civil engineer from Kansas University in 1936, gained his MS from the University of Iowa in 1937 and the PhD title in 1942 from the University of Minnesota. He was an Instructor in mathematics and mechanics there from 1937 to 1942, and until 1951 a research engineer at the University of Iowa. In parallel he spent the year 1951 at Université de Grenoble, France, and there obtained the title Docteur ès Science. McNown was appointed that year associate professor at Iowa University and Associate Director of the Institute of Hydraulic Research directed then by Hunter Rouse. In 1957, McNown moved as Dean of the School of Engineering and Architecture to the University of Kansas, in Lawrence. From 1965 until retirement, he there was a civil engineering professor, moving in the 1980s as a Visiting professor to the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

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McNown was a notable hydraulic engineer. He has contributed the chapter Surges and Water Hammer to Rouse's widely known 1950 book. In 1954, McNown presented a notable paper on the hydraulics of manifold flows as typically occur in environmental hydraulics, and for which he was awarded the James R. Croes Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE in 1955. Following his stay in Grenoble, France, a number of Americans visited this famous Institute and developed a close collaboration between Europe and the USA. McNown's scholarly contributions are enormous. His principal research topics were sedimentation, analytical fluid mechanics, unsteady flow, lock-filling systems and resistance of ships in restricted water. He was a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, was awarded the Albert P. Learned professional chair and in 1970 became a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics. McNown was active also for the International Association of Hydraulic Research IAHR, particularly for the IAHR Manual Series. He was elected IAHR Honorary Member in 1991.

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_{Anonymous (1950). ASCE Research Prize awarded to McNown. Civil Engineering 20(3): 54. P}

_{Cederwall, K. (1998). John S. McNown. IAHR Newsletter 36(3): 37. P}

_{McNown, J.S. (1950). Surges and water hammer. Engineering hydraulics: 444-495, H. Rouse, ed.}

_{John Wiley: New York.}

_{McNown, J.S. (1954). Mechanics of manifold flow. Trans. ASCE 110: 1103-1142.}

_{McNown, J.S. (1991). Recollections of leaders in fluid mechanics. Royal Inst. Tech.: Stockholm.}