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GARBIS HVANNES KEULEGAN
1890-1989
BY JOHN F. KENNEDY
GAR13IS H KEULEGAN physicist, hydraulic engineer, and spe-
cialist in theoretical and experimental fluid mechanics, died on
July 2S, 1989, at the age of ninety-nine years. In September of the
preceding year he had retired after sixty-seven years of continu-
ous employmentwith the federal government, first as a physicist
with the National Bureau of Standards (from 1921 to 1962), and
then as consultant and special assistant to the chief, Army Corps
of Engineers' Waterways Experiment Station (WES) Hydraulic
Laboratory (from 1962 to 1988~. He served as a federal govern-
ment employee longer, and to an older age, than any other
person in the annals of federal service.
Keulegan was born on July 12, lX90, in Sebastia-Sivas in
Turkish-occupied Armenia Minor, the first of six children born
to hisArmenian engineer father and his immigrant (daughter of
an itinerant kiln designer and builder) German mother nee
Emma Marguerite Klein. Keulegan received his first degree, in
engineering, from Anatolin College in Marsovan, Armenia Mi-
nor, in 1912. Later that year he came to the United States to
continue his engineering education under a scholarship he had
been awarded by Ohio State University, where he changed fields
and received an A.B. in mathematics and physics in 1914 and an
M.A. in physics in 1915. He then was employed byWestinghouse
until he joined the army in 191S, where he served in France as a
translator on the staff of General John I. Pershing until 1919.
133
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
His original plan to return to his native Armenia after the war
and go into engineering practice in his father's business was
ended by the 1915 Armenian massacre. Therefore, upon his
discharge from the army he returned to Westinghouse where he
remained until 1920, when he joined the staff of the Terrestrial
Magnetism Department at Carnegie Institution.
Keulegan commenced his employment as a physicist with the
National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in 1921. His early work
there was concerned principally with solid mechanics, in partic-
ular hysteresis in structural members subjected to cyclic loading;
development of various instruments and meters for use in
aircraft; and, building on his M.S. thesis, temperature coeffi-
cients and elastic mocluli of metals. Shortly afterjoining the NBS
staff, he started work toward his doctorate in physics by taking
night courses at Johns Hopkins University. In 1928 he received
his Ph.D. after submitting a thesis entitled "On the Vibration of
U Bars"; and in September of that year he married Nellie
Virginia Moore.
In 1932 Keulegan was transferred to the then newly estate
fished NBS National Hydraulic Laboratory (NHL), which was
envisioned to be "The Nation's Hydraulic Laboratory." It was
there during the prewar years that he conducted his classic work
on turbulent flow in open channels; roll-wave formation; water-
wave theory; flow in curved pipes; and salinity intrusion.
From 1942 until 1946 Keulegan was seconded from NHL to
the Army Corps of Engineers Beach Erosion Board (BEE),
where he applier! the extensive knowledge of waves, ticies, en cl
currents he had acquired at NHL to a variety of military prob-
lems. Particularly noteworthy atBEB was hisworkwith the beach-
intelligence group, whose mission was to provide the planners of
military amphibious lanclings with information on beach slopes,
sane! characteristics, reef positions and sizes, tide and surf con-
clitions, etc. This information was essential to the successful
execution of amphibious-landing operations, and much of it
had to be inferred from aerial photos and study of wave-diffrac-
tion patterns. The first stucly for an actual landing was of the
North Africa coast for "Operation Torch." Subsequent studies
were concerned with lancling sites on Sicily and southern Italy,
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GARBIS HVANNES KEULEGAN
135
and then the Pacific islands. Other BEE activities on which
Keulegan worked during the war years included the beaching
anti retraction characteristics of landing craft; development of
towed breakwaters; and feasibility of a mid-Atlantic floating
landing field for aircraft refueling.
Following his return to NHL in 1946, Keulegan resumed his
work on development of model laws for density currents, and
theory of water waves and ticles. His work on density currents was
of great interest to the Corps of Engineers because of salt-water
intrusion problems that were being encountered in large reser-
voirs and at the mouths of several large rivers, as well as at
navigation locks between fresh-space and salt-water bodies. These
problems were complicated bywater waves, sand, and especially,
tides. This workwas to occupy much of his technical attention for
the next sixteen years until he retiree! from NHL in 1962 and
joined the staff of the Army Corps of Engineers' Waterways
Experiment Station (WES).
Because of his age, special authorization had to be obtained
to employ Keulegan atWES. These administrative hurdles finally
were overcome, and in 1963 the Keulegan family moved to
Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he was employed on a nominally
half-time basis as a consultant and special assistant to the chief,
WES Hydraulic Laboratory. There his work continued to be
concerned principally with waves, tides, en cl density currents
and salinity intrusion. During his first few years at WES, these
interestswere broadened to include flow through tidal inlets and
resulted in his seminal work on this important problem. He was
invaluable in designing strategies for, en cl guiding conduct of,
particularly clifficult model studies. He also worked closely with
the WES group involved in the then rapidly growing fields of
numerical hydraulics, en cl he assisted them in developing the
physical bases and mathematical strategies for their family of
software. However, pencil en cl paper continued to be his princi-
pal tools. He never even adopted the electronic desktop calcula-
tors; instead, he utilized progressively longer slide rules as his
eyesight became weaker. However, with the passage of time his
workday became shorter, and eventually he spentjust the morn-
ings in his office. Three bouts of surgery, including cataract
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
removal in 1980 and its repair (following a fall outside his office
at WES) in 1984, failed to stop his relentless research productiv-
ity. During the latter years of his career, his daily routine
consisted of going to his of lice at 7:00 a.m. There he would work
on the problems of interest to him, taking special delight in
helping others find new ways to approach technical problems
that were troubling them. At about ~ ~ :00 a.m. he would leave his
office for lunch at home or a restaurant.
Among the most noteworthy of his numerous outstanding
publications were his series of twelve progress reports on density-
current mode] laws and related problems prepared at NBS
under contract to WES between 1946 and 1960. The bibliogra-
phy of his publications contains nearly one hundred entries,
including Chapter 11, 'Wave Motion," in Rouse's Engineering
Hydraulics; Chapters ~ I, "The Mechanism of an Arrested Saline
Wedge," and 17, "Moclel laws for Coastal and Estuarine Models,"
of Ippen'sEstua~y and Coastline Hydrodynamics; and the proceed-
ings he edited (with NBS colleague K. H. Beij) of the 1951 NBS
Semicentennial Symposium on Gravity Waves.
In the course of his long and very distinguished career,
Keulegan was accorded a full complement of professional recog-
nition. These includecl the Commerce Department's Gold MecI-
al (1960), the National Medal of Science (1968), the Army
Research and Development Award and honorary membership
in the American Society of Civil Engineers (1969), U.S. Army's
Meritorious Civilian Service Award (1973), the Commander's
Service Award for Civilian Service and election to the National
Academy of Engineering (1979), and selection for inclusion in
the WES Gallery of Distinguished Civilian Employees ( 1986) . He
hacT numerous hobbies. He loved to read American history,
especially that of the early West. He also liked western movies,
particularly those starring Gene Autry or the Lone Ranger, and
the family dinner hour was arranged so he could watch televised
programs featuring these heroes. He was an avid gardener and
prized his roses and tomatoes. His lifelong morning delight was
to arise early (usually around 4:00 a.m.) and drink coffee and
smoke cigarettes while "doing his thinking." Later, after the
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bircis arose, thinking was joined by watching them come to the
bird houses and bird baths he built and tended.
In 1981 when asked to what he attributed his longevity and
ability to work for so many years, Keulegan explained, "I never
had big icleas. I did not want to be a section chief, I did not want
to be rich I'm just interested in my work. I love people; I love
working in the hydraulics laboratory; I enjoy my work immense-
ly it helps keep me alert."
Keulegan had a professional career that spanned nearly eight
decades. This is nearly double the time apportioned most profes-
sional people for their productive careers. He was a citizen of two
countries. He was educated in science ant! engineering and did
extensive research in both solicl and fluid mechanics. He was a
longtime employee of two agencies, NBS and WES. In short, he
was granted the equivalent of roughly two lifetimes, and he used
them, and enjoyed them, wonderfully well.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
garbis hvannes
