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Wind Wizard: Alan G. Davenport and the Art of Wind Engineering
How the father of wind engineering helped make the world's most amazing buildings and bridges possible
With Wind Wizard , Siobhan Roberts brings us the story of Alan Davenport (1932-2009), the father of modern wind engineering, who investigated how wind navigates the obstacle course of the earth's natural and built environments―and how, when not properly heeded, wind causes buildings and bridges to teeter unduly, sway with abandon, and even collapse.
In 1964, Davenport received a confidential telephone call from two engineers requesting tests on a pair of towers that promised to be the tallest in the world. His resulting wind studies on New York's World Trade Center advanced the art and science of wind engineering with one pioneering innovation after another. Establishing the first dedicated "boundary layer" wind tunnel laboratory for civil engineering structures, Davenport enabled the study of the atmospheric region from the earth's surface to three thousand feet, where the air churns with turbulent eddies, the average wind speed increasing with height. The boundary layer wind tunnel mimics these windy marbled striations in order to test models of buildings and bridges that inevitably face the wind when built. Over the years, Davenport's revolutionary lab investigated and improved the wind-worthiness of the world's greatest structures, including the Sears Tower, the John Hancock Tower, Shanghai's World Financial Center, the CN Tower, the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, the Sunshine Skyway, and the proposed crossing for the Strait of Messina, linking Sicily with mainland Italy.
Chronicling Davenport's innovations by analyzing select projects, this popular-science book gives an illuminating behind-the-scenes view into the practice of wind engineering, and insight into Davenport's steadfast belief that there is neither a structure too tall nor too long, as long as it is supported by sound wind science.
With Wind Wizard , Siobhan Roberts brings us the story of Alan Davenport (1932-2009), the father of modern wind engineering, who investigated how wind navigates the obstacle course of the earth's natural and built environments―and how, when not properly heeded, wind causes buildings and bridges to teeter unduly, sway with abandon, and even collapse.
In 1964, Davenport received a confidential telephone call from two engineers requesting tests on a pair of towers that promised to be the tallest in the world. His resulting wind studies on New York's World Trade Center advanced the art and science of wind engineering with one pioneering innovation after another. Establishing the first dedicated "boundary layer" wind tunnel laboratory for civil engineering structures, Davenport enabled the study of the atmospheric region from the earth's surface to three thousand feet, where the air churns with turbulent eddies, the average wind speed increasing with height. The boundary layer wind tunnel mimics these windy marbled striations in order to test models of buildings and bridges that inevitably face the wind when built. Over the years, Davenport's revolutionary lab investigated and improved the wind-worthiness of the world's greatest structures, including the Sears Tower, the John Hancock Tower, Shanghai's World Financial Center, the CN Tower, the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, the Sunshine Skyway, and the proposed crossing for the Strait of Messina, linking Sicily with mainland Italy.
Chronicling Davenport's innovations by analyzing select projects, this popular-science book gives an illuminating behind-the-scenes view into the practice of wind engineering, and insight into Davenport's steadfast belief that there is neither a structure too tall nor too long, as long as it is supported by sound wind science.
- GenresScience
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Siobhan Roberts
4 books30 followersWhile writing the Conway biography, Siobhan Roberts was a Director’s Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, and a Fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography, at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. In 2017 she won the JPBM Communications Award for Expository and Popular Books, bestowed by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America (putting her in good company with previous recipients James Gleick and Sylvia Nasar, among others).
She also wrote and produced a documentary film about Coxeter, The Man Who Saved Geometry, for TVOntario’s The View From Here (September 2009).
As a journalist, she writes for Newyorker.com, New York Times "Science Times," Quanta, and The Walrus. Her profile of the one-hundred-year-old mathematician Richard Guy was included in The Best Writing on Mathematics 2017 (Princeton University Press).
At various times she has contributed to The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, The Mathematical Intelligencer, Maisonneuve, Canadian Geographic, and Smithsonian, among other publications. She has won a few National Magazine Awards—writing about “the river of dust” at the National Archives in Ottawa, the occasion when the FBI came calling at Winnipeg’s level-4 National Microbiology Laboratory, and Donald Coxeter’s final journey, to a geometry conference in Budapest at the age of ninety-three.
She also wrote and produced a documentary film about Coxeter, The Man Who Saved Geometry, for TVOntario’s The View From Here (September 2009).
As a journalist, she writes for Newyorker.com, New York Times "Science Times," Quanta, and The Walrus. Her profile of the one-hundred-year-old mathematician Richard Guy was included in The Best Writing on Mathematics 2017 (Princeton University Press).
At various times she has contributed to The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, The Mathematical Intelligencer, Maisonneuve, Canadian Geographic, and Smithsonian, among other publications. She has won a few National Magazine Awards—writing about “the river of dust” at the National Archives in Ottawa, the occasion when the FBI came calling at Winnipeg’s level-4 National Microbiology Laboratory, and Donald Coxeter’s final journey, to a geometry conference in Budapest at the age of ninety-three.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 10, 2019
This is a very impressive work on the life and works of Alan Davenport, the founder of wind engineering. Roberts have a very good understanding of the advanced engineering concepts. She engages the reader with an understandable language. Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in engineering history or philosophy or engineering in general.
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September 20, 2013624.175 R647 2013
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews