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John V. Wehausen, professor emeri- tus of engineering science at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the world's leading researchers in hydrodynamics, died on Oct. 6, 2005 at the age of 92. "Many of us in the marine academ- ic field consider John Wehausen to be a pioneer in marine hydrodynamics," said Ronald Yeung, a UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering who chaired the campus's former Department of Naval Architecture and Offshore Engineering and con- sidered Wehausen a mentor. "His background as an applied mathemati- cian allowed him to set the frame- work for mathematical analysis of important ocean- and ship-related problems. This became increasingly important as practitioners sought to build offshore drilling systems that could reach depths of up to 2,000 meters and ships that could reach speeds over 50 knots yet survive the worst storms at sea." Wehausen contributed original research in the areas of wave resist- ance, floating-system motions, ship maneuverability and ship-generated solitary waves. In 1960, he published one of his most influential works, the comprehensive review article "Surface Waves," co-authored by the late UC Berkeley professor Edmund V. Laitone. The article was originally published in the Encyclopedia of Physics and to this day is still used as an important resource for under- standing the dynamics of water waves. At UC Berkeley, Wehausen helped form the Department of Naval Architecture in 1958 with support from the Office of Naval Research. At the time, only three other U.S. insti- tutions -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan and the Webb Institute -- offered accredited degree programs in naval architecture. "The intention was to develop a program that would stress fundamen- tal hydrodynamics and fundamental structural mechanics in contrast to the applied programs that existed elsewhere in the country," said J. Randolph Paulling, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of naval architec- ture and a colleague of Wehausen's for more than 40 years. "Water wave problems constitute an area of com- plex mathematics, and Wehausen's background in mathematics was exactly what the Office of Naval Research wanted. There were others in the world working on the mathe- matical theory of waves, but I think it's safe to say that Wehausen was pre- eminent in the U.S. at that time." The department eventually evolved in 1996 into a graduate group in ocean engineering within the gradu- ate division. This fall, it became a major field of study within the UC Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering. In 1937, Wehausen began his first teaching position as an instructor in mathematics at Brown University. It was there that he met his future wife, Mary Katherine Wertime, a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics. They had been married 62 years when she died in January 2001. He went on to hold other teaching positions at Columbia University and the University of Missouri from 1938 to 1944. During World War II, he worked for the U.S. Navy in opera- tions analysis from 1944 to 1946 before joining the David Taylor Model Basin, a Navy research and development lab in Bethesda, Md. now known as the Hydromechanics Directorate at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. His three-year tenure at the David Taylor Model Basin would prove formative. There, Wehausen met and was greatly influenced by renowned German ship hydrodynamicist Georg Weinblum. Wehausen's interest in water-wave theory and ship hydrody- namics can be traced to this time period. Wehausen served as head of the Mechanics Branch of the federal Office of Naval Research from 1949 to 1950, and was then selected as executive editor of the journal Mathematical Reviews, a position he held from 1950 to 1956. In 1956, he was recruited by UC Berkeley, where he developed the graduate degree pro- gram in naval architecture. He retired from UC Berkeley in 1984, but remained active in www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 49 people & companies Leader in Marine Hydrodynamics Dies MTR#1 (49-64).qxd 1/9/2006 3:46 PM Page 49
