Memorial Tributes Volume 21 (2017) / Chapter Skim
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ALAN COTTRELL
ALAN COTTRELL
Pages 74-83
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From page 75... ...
Over a period of some 70 years the impacts of his work on the basic understanding of materials and its application to engineering structures, his academic leadership, his role as scientific advisor to the British government, and his contributions to safe nuclear energy were all immense. Sir Alan was born in Birmingham (UK)
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From page 76... ...
He was a brilliant lecturer, conveying complex phenomena in simple terms. After the war Alan started research on the plastic properties of metals, with a view to establishing the role of crystal line defects, called dislocations, in determining mechanical properties.
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From page 77... ...
His aim was to advance the understanding of radiation damage relevant to the development of nuclear power reactors. Radiation damage in uranium rods, in the graphite core in Magnox civil nuclear reactors in the United Kingdom, was of particular concern.
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From page 78... ...
This fact plays an important role in the development of modern steels. On October 10, 1957, a reactor at Windscale caught fire during a gentle heating to anneal damage due to displaced carbon atoms in the graphite core -- the Wigner energy released in this process heated up the graphite so much that it caught fire.
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From page 79... ...
In 1966 he followed Zuckerman to the Cabinet Office as deputy chief scientific advisor. There he tackled various problems with scientific aspects, including environment and pollution, the Advanced Passenger Train, and the Torrey Canyon disaster.
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From page 80... ...
In 1973, in a minute to the UK Nuclear Power Advisory Board, and in 1974, in evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology, Alan expressed his concern about the integrity of the steel reactor pressure vessel, which is critical to the safety of the pressurized water reactor (PWR) promoted by Walter Marshall at that time for the UK Civil Nuclear Program.
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From page 81... ...
, the Kelvin Gold Medal of the UK Institution of Civil Engineers (1986) , and the Von Hippel Award of the Materials Research Society (1996)
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From page 82... ...
He loved his family and was proud of Geoffrey working on nuclear fusion, which Alan considered to be an important future energy source. From 1996 he cared full time for his wife Jean, who suffered from Parkinson's disease.
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