Name John Argyris Role Engineer | Awards Timoshenko Medal | |
 | ||
Born Ιωάννης χατζι Αργύρης19 August 1913Volos, Greece ( 1913-08-19 ) Institutions Imperial College LondonUniversity of Stuttgart Died April 2, 2004, Stuttgart, Germany Books Energy theorems and structural analysis Notable awards Theodore von Karman Medal (1975), Royal Society (1986) | ||
John Hadji Argyris FRS (Greek: Ιωάννης Αργύρης; 19 August 1913 – 2 April 2004) was a Greek pioneer of computer applications in science and engineering, among the creators of the finite element method (FEM), and lately Professor at the University of Stuttgart and Director of the Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures.
Contents
Education
He was born in Volos, Greece but the family moved to Athens where he was educated in the Classical Gymnasium.
He studied civil engineering for four years in the National Technical University of Athens and then in the Technical University Munich, receiving his Engineering Diploma in 1936.
Career
His first job was at the Gollnow company in Stettin, where he was involved among other things in high radio transmitter masts. He was imprisoned by the Nazis for some time but with the help of Admiral Canaris he escaped to Switzerland where he continued his studies in ETH Zurich. In 1943, he joined the research department of the Royal Aeronautical Society in England. Starting from 1949 he was lecturer in aeronautical engineering at the Imperial College London of the University of London, where he assumed a chair in 1955.
In 1959, Argyris was appointed a professor at the Technical University of Stuttgart (today University of Stuttgart) and director of the Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures. He created the Aeronautical and Astronautical Campus of the University of Stuttgart as focal point for applications of digital computers and electronics.
Argyris was involved in and developed to a large extent the Finite Element Method along with Ray William Clough and Olgierd Zienkiewicz after an early mathematical pre-working of Richard Courant.
Awards and honours
Argyris was awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society Silver Medal in 1971.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1986. His nomination reads:
Personal life
His uncle, Constantin Carathéodory, was a Greek mathematician of the Modern Era. He died in Stuttgart and is buried in the Sankt Jörgens Cemetery in the city of Varberg, Sweden.