| AdminHistory | Kenneth Johnson, born in Barrow in 1925, studied mechanical engineering at Manchester University during World War II. At Manchester he was recipient of a state scholarship on an accelerated course, having been interviewed by CP Snow,who was then employed at the Ministry of Labour.
After some years in industry (at Rotol, where he worked on the Spitfire aeroplane) and an early appointment back in Manchester, he spent most of his academic career teaching and researching at the Engineering Department of Cambridge University. He was also a long-serving Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Johnson led an active life, singing in choirs, playing sports and fell-walking.
He was renowned for the insightful analysis of meticulous experiments in contact mechanics. He was widely acknowledged as the doyen of this area, particularly after the publication of his seminal work of the same name. His major publications included topics in friction and wear, and lubrication, rolling contact and adhesion. Important applications of his insights included the prediction of corrugations and cracks in railway lines. He was gratified when, after many years of dormancy, his ideas in adhesion were used by others to explain the climbing behaviours of insects and other small animals with soft feet.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1987. He was awarded the Tribology Gold Medal in 1985, and received the 2006 Timoshenko Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. |