NIMMO

UNITED KINGDOM (see also List of Individuals)

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10.2.1885 Torquay/UK - 7.5.1970 Brisbane/AU

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William Hogarth Robertson Nimmo was educated at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He served from 1918 to 1924 as principal assistant engineer to the hydroelectric commission of Tasmania and for the following two years was a civil engineer in Brisbane. From 1927 to 1934 Nimmo was an engineer in charge of the roads of Queensland to become from 1935 to 1949 chief engineer for the Stanley River Works in Brisbane. He joined from 1950 to 1955 as commissioner the irrigation and water supply of Queensland in Brisbane and from then was a consulting engineer for the government of Queensland. Nimmo was a Member of the Institution of Engineers, London, and the Institution of Engineers, Australia, for which he served as a president in the term 1948 and later was elected Honorary Member. He was awarded the Peter Nicol Russell Memorial Medal in 1950 and he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1962 in recognition of the distinguished service he had given to the Queensland government. To recognize his authority in hydrology and hydraulic engineering, the University of Queensland conferred upon him the degree of Doctor in Engineering in 1963.

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Nimmo made his name as a hydraulic engineer specializing on dams and water supply. His greatest challenge was the Stanley River Dam of which he was the design engineer first and later becoming chief engineer. The concrete gravity dam is 50 m high; it includes four 2 m needle valves, eight high pressure sluice gates and eight 8m × 8 m crest gates. On this monumental work, he continued until 1949 and the dam was completed only ten years later. Nimmo also contributed significantly to the hydraulics of flows with a spatially variable discharge with his 1928 paper. By applying the momentum equation, he derived the governing equations for both flows with a decreasing and an increasing discharge. The results were compared to model tests.

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_{Anonymous (1964). William H.G. Nimmo. Who's who in engineering: 1373. Lewis: New York. Anonymous (1970). William Hogarth Robertson Nimmo. Journal Institution Engineers, Australia 42(6): N56.}

_{Anonymous (1971). Dr. W.H.G. Nimmo. Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers 48: 363-364. P}

_{Nimmo, W.H.R. (1928). Side spillways for regulating diversion canals. Trans. ASCE 92: 1561-1588.}