|
Items in cart [0] |
Questions? Call 888-624-8373 |
| Copyright © 2009. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 132
OCR for page 133
THOMAS BRADFORD DREW
1902-1985
BY SHELDON ISAKOFF
THOMAS BRADFORD DREW, professor emeritus at the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ant! former head
of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia
University, died on May 5, 1985, at the age of eighty-three.
Professor Drew was born on February 9, 1902, in Med-
ford, Massachusetts. He attended the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, from which he received his B.S. and M.S. in
chemical engineering in 1923 and 1924, respectively.
Professor Drew began his long and distinguished academic
career in 1924 as a teaching assistant at MIT. After he ob-
tained his master's degree, he joined the faculty of Drexe}
Institute in Philadelphia and taught both chemistry and
chemical engineering. After three years, he returned to MIT
as an instructor in chemical engineering and initiated re-
search in the fundamentals of heat transfer, a field! that con-
tinuec! to occupy his attention throughout his lifetime and to
which he macle many creative and outstanding contributions.
During a six-year period at MIT, Professor Drew joined
with W. H. McAdams and H. C. Hotte! in pioneering efforts
in heat transfer and fluid flow research. Their work culmi-
nated in their coauthorship of one of the first reviews on
mathematical approaches to convective heat transfer ~ "Heat
Transmission," Transactions of the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers 32E ~ 9361: 27 I-3051.
133
OCR for page 134
134
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
In 1934 Professor Drew left the academic community for
a six-year sojourn with E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Com-
pany in Wilmington, Delaware, where he joined a small
group of chemical engineers conducting research in the area
of unit operations uncler the direction of T. H. Chilton.
Their work at Du Pont proved to be quite significant: Appar-
ently, Du Pont was the country's first industrial organization
to carry out funciamental research in chemical engineering.
For Du Pont, Drew supervised research in heat, mass, and
momentum transfer. In aciclition, he developecl rational pro-
cedures for the design of chemical process equipment and
manufacturing systems. Much of the data that Drew and his
Du Pont colleagues generated were made available on a
broad basis to chemical engineers by Drew's authoring of im-
portant segments of I. H. Perry's Chemical Engineer's Handbook
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 19341.
Moreover, a second paper published with his coworker
A. P. Colburn, "The Condensation of Mixed Vapors" (Trans-
Drew left Du Pont in 1940 to begin a twenty-five-year as-
sociation with Columbia University, first as a professor and
then as heat! of the Department of Chemical Engineering, a
position he hell! for ten years. During WorIcl War Il. Profes-
sor Drew lecl the Columbia University research efforts asso-
ciated with the Manhattan District Project.
On leave to Du Pont for two years, he was a major contrib-
utor to the (resign of the gaseous diffusion technique for iso-
tope separation of the Hanford Plutonium Plant, as well as a
contributor to other critical plant aspects. As the chemical
engineering department head at Columbia University, he in-
troducecl some of the country's earliest courses in nuclear
actions of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 33~19373:
197-215), remains one of the most incisive papers written
about this highly technical area. It clarified a number of
confusing misunclerstandings about the subject that were
prevalent at the time and is still referred to today, almost fifty
years later, as a means to a better unclerstancting of mixed
vapors.
OCR for page 135
THOMAS BRADFORD DREW
135
engineering and established a major heat transfer research
facility that operated for many years under the sponsorship
of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
After the war, Professor Drew was a consultant to the
Brookhaven National Laboratory, an association he main-
tainect for fifteen years. During this period, he helped guide
the laboratory's research program in the physical sciences; he
also servect as chairman of the Brookhaven Engineering AcI-
visory Committee for eight years. During the early 1960s, he
was a consultant to the Ford Foundation and worked in India
to improve the quality of engineering instruction at the BirIa
Institute of Technology and Science. In 1965 Professor Drew
returned to his first love, MIT, where he helct an emeritus
professorship until his death.
~ ~ 1 1. . ~
Brews ctec~lcatlon to research and progress In the fielct of
chemical engineering never waned. For almost thirty years
(from ~ 954 to ~ 98 ~ ), until shortly before his death, he served
as editor of Advances in Chemical Engineering (New York: Aca-
clemic Press), a series of volumes that featured comprehen-
sive reviews of the many new, evolving aspects of chemical
engineering cluring that period.
Professor Drew received many awards and honors cluring
his long, illustrious career. He was one of the earliest recipi-
ents (1937) of the William H. Walker Award, which is pre-
sented annually by the American Institute of Chemical En-
gineers (AIChE) to recognize excellence in contributions to
chemical engineering literature. Professor Drew was also se-
lected by AIChE to be its Annual Institute Lecturer in 1951.
His lecture, "Diffusion, What We Know and What We Don't,"
clemonstrated his remarkable ability to apply advanced
mathematics to complex physical problems and thereby cle-
· · . · · · ~
rive practical engineering Utl~ lty result ts.
In 1967 Drew was the recipient of the Max Jakob Memo-
rial Award in Heat Transfer, given jointly by AIChE anc! the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 1983 he was
designated by AIChE as one of the nation's eminent chemical
engineers. Drew was also a member of Sigma Xi, Tau Beta
.
OCR for page 136
136
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Pi, and Phi Lambda Upsilon honorary societies, and a fellow
of AIChE, the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, ant! the New York Academy of Sciences. He was
elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1983.
Yet Thomas Drew was far more than a remarkably tal-
ented researcher, engineer, and academician. He was a great
source of acivice ant! inspiration for his students and col-
leagues. He combined extraordinary technical talents with a
profound! sense of fairness, sincerity, personal warmth, and
friendship. He had a strong sense of history, placing current
events into a sound framework. He was a Proust member of
the Society of Cincinnati, an organization of direct male cle-
scendants of the officers who served with George Washing-
ton cluring the Revolutionary War.
Thomas Drew was thoroughly devoted to his wife Alice
and to his three claughters, Mary Drew of Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts; Sally Cokelet of Rochester, New York; and Wendy
Cavanaugh of Manlius, New York. He will be missed very
much by the many people whose lives he touchecl.
OCR for page 137
Representative terms from entire chapter:
chemical engineers
