Corporate / Walter R. Evans Award
Walter R. Evans (1920 - 1999)
Walter Richard Evans was a noted engineer, author, and businessman. While employed at North American Aviation as a controls systems engineer, Evans developed the Root-Locus Method, a graphical means of indicating and analyzing the roots of a control system's characteristic equation. His genius was in his ability to simplify complex problems and rapidly arrive at approximate solutions, and this was the crux of the Root-Locus Method.
This work resulted in major advancements in the field of feedback control systems and dynamics systems. Evans was awarded the Rufus Oldenburger Medal by ASME in 1987, and the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award by the American Automatic Control Council in 1988.
Evans's book, Control - System Dynamics, was first published in 1954 and is considered one of the most important books on the subject from its most outstanding teacher. Bently Nevada owner and founder, Donald. E. Bently, had the privilege of working alongside Evans while at North American Aviation. It was there that Bently learned the Root-Locus Method. He would later be the first to apply this important tool to rotor dynamic system analysis. An autographed copy of the book was given to Don Bently by Walter Evans, and still resides in Mr. Bently's personal library.
To aid in making the calculations involved in Root-Locus plots, Evans developed an ingenious device he called the "Spirule," a "Slide Rule." The Spirule permits rapid addition of angles or multiplication on lengths of vectors. It can also be used in plotting vectors or as a circular slide rule.
While digital computers have replaced the Spirule in most instances, it is still preferred by some as a sketching tool, and is particularly useful in the so-called "Pinball Solution Method" for highly complex polynomials.
In 2001 Donald. E. Bently established the Walter R. Evans Award, a plaque with an embedded Platinum Eagle coin, which is presented to those who have made significant contributions to the field of Rotor Dynamics.
Walter R. Evans Award Recipients
2007
Professor Dara Childs - In recognition for his work in Rotor Dynamics; especially for his excellent equations for seal technology.
2006
John C. Wobensmith - In recognition for his excellent writings and especially his contribution to the recent book, “Taking on Tehran,” and his recent article “Reinvigorating Intelligence,” that Jeff Smith co-authored. Also for enhancing the security of our country.
2005
Professor Takuzo Iwatsubo - (has not been presented)
2004
Prof. William Brian Rowe - in recognition of his excellent early development work on pressurized bearings.
2003
Dr. Walter R. Evans - In recognition for pioneering the Root Locus methodology for the entire world for both the analog age and the digital age.
2002
Dr. Judsen S. Swearingen - In recognition of his early work on pressurized bearings. In addition. Dr. Swearingen is the person generally given credit for the principal process used to separate U235 from U238.
2001
Prof. Robert H. Cannon, Jr. - in recognition of his contribution to the development of Root Locus method.
- Walter R. Evans Award Recipients Announced Basic Fluid Bearing Diagnostics for Rotating Machinery – a Seminar for Rotating Equipment Professionals. RoMaDyn – Bently Family of Companies launches new Rotating Machinery Engineering Services. New publication explains the fundamentals of machinery diagnostics – Bently Pressurized Bearing Press announces the release of a new book by Donald E. Bently. International Symposium on Stability Control of Rotating Machinery (ISCORMA-4) – to be held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 27-31 August 2007.
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