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MILTON CLAYTON SHAW
1915–2006
Elected in 1968
“For contributions to chemical synthesis, lubrication and bearing design,
and machine tool design and performance.”
BY RANGA KOMANDURI AND BARBARA SHAW ZITZEWITZ
SUBMITTED BY THE NAE HOME SECRETARY
MILTON SHAW, a distinguished and influential educator
in manufacturing engineering, died on September 7, 2006,
at the age of 91. He was elected to the National Academy of
Engineering (NAE) in 1968 for his contributions to chemical
synthesis, lubrication and bearing design, and machine tool
design and performance.
Shaw was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 27,
1915, to parents who had little formal education but were hard
workers and instilled in him a solid sense of values. As a boy,
he was active in the Boy Scouts; he became an Eagle Scout and
then a Sea Scout. When he finished high school, his parents
borrowed against his father’s life insurance so he could enter a
five-year cooperative program at Drexel University leading to
a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering, which he received in 1938.
For six months of each of the second, third, and fourth years, he
worked in industry; he also joined the Reserve Officers Training
Corp. His experiences in these programs were invaluable, and
the wages he earned offset his expenses. Upon graduation,
he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Infantry
Reserve.
Shaw graduated during the worst part of the Depression
when jobs of any sort were difficult to find. Fortunately, a
physicist from the University of Cincinnati came looking for an
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262 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
engineering graduate willing to study chemistry, physics, and
mathematics in the College of Liberal Arts while conducting
basic research on the development of a new line of cutting
fluids. In return for being able to work as a mechanical engineer,
Shaw was willing to start over as a liberal arts student, with an
emphasis on chemistry. This unique cooperative program
was sponsored by the Cincinnati Milling Machine Company
(predecessor of Cincinnati Milacron).
In his first year, Shaw studied all of the material required for
an undergraduate chemistry major. In the next three years, he
took every available graduate course in chemistry and some in
physics and mathematics. In 1942, after writing a doctoral thesis
on the chemical aspects of cutting-fluid action, he received his
Sc.D. As a result of his interdisciplinary studies, a combination
of engineering and physical sciences became the foundation
for his research.
Late in the fall of 1941, as he was finishing work on his
degree, he was offered and accepted an assistant professorship
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). However,
a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, his future boss
at MIT called and told him to report immediately to Langley
Field, Virginia, to work in the Engine Division of the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), later NASA.
In the spring of 1942, he moved to the Lewis Laboratory near
Cleveland, where he worked his way up to the position of chief
of the Materials Branch at NACA.
Early in 1946, Shaw was finally able to return to his teaching
position at MIT, where, with strong support from industry, he
established a first-class materials-processing research program.
The primary focus of the program was on metal cutting and
grinding, and doctoral students working under his supervision
produced numerous high-quality research papers on a variety
of problems, such as grinding-process temperatures, the
temperatures generated ahead of the cutting tool in machining,
measurement of forces and the number of cutting points in
grinding, the influence of chip thickness on size effects, and the
dynamics of chip formation and fracture. Thus Shaw became
a world leader in research on metal cutting and grinding, and
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MILTON CLAYTON SHAW
students from all over the world began to seek positions in his
laboratory.
In the fall of 1952, Shaw made his first trip abroad, visiting
laboratories and delivering lectures all over Europe. In the spirit
of the Organization for European Cooperative Development,
he became a founding member (and the first U.S. member)
of the College International pour l’Etude Scientifique des
Techniques de Production Mechanique (CIRP), an organization
in which he remained active and a leader for more than 50 years.
CIRP was organized so that large and small countries could
participate equally. In English, this international institution
is known as the International Academy for Production
Engineering Research.
In 1961, Shaw moved to Carnegie Institute of Technology
(subsequently Carnegie Mellon University [CMU]) as professor
and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
During his tenure at CMU, his main areas of focus were form-
and-finish grinding (FFG) and stock-removal grinding (SRG),
the use of single grains to evaluate grinding performance, and
work on high-speed grinding sponsored by the Abrasive Grain
Association, the Grinding Wheel Institute, and the National
Science Foundation. In addition he worked on lubrication and
wear, the fracture of metals and ceramics, hardness testing, and
plastic indentation. With a grant from the National Science
Foundation, he established the Processing Research Institute,
a forerunner of NSF engineering research center where a
university interacts extensively with industry. Shaw retired
from CMU as university professor in 1978.
He then moved to Arizona State University (ASU) as professor
in the Department of Aerospace and Engineering Science. His
work at ASU led to more insights into the cutting and grinding
of hard materials, ceramics, rubber elasticity, and fracture. In
1985, he became professor emeritus at ASU, but he continued
to work with graduate students there until 1998.
Shaw had a unique ability to transfer knowledge from
a given field into a new direction or in support of a new
application and to develop basic scientific explanations for
practical observations. For example, in his Ph.D. dissertation on
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264 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
mechanical activation, he used a metal-cutting setup to initiate
chemical reactions that are difficult to initiate and control
and are extremely dangerous (known as Grignard reactions).
He developed a “mechanical fuse” by applying metal-cutting
principles to the bumper of an automobile to absorb energy
during slow-speed impact. Similarly, he incorporated an
extrusion die near the tool face to draw the metal-cutting chips
to form copper wire. He used simple experiments, explanations,
and modeling to demonstrate phenomena of concern, and he
encouraged his collaborators to rely on their expertise to solve
problems instead of developing elaborate proposals for what
to do and how to do it. In this way, the researchers who worked
with him produced practical results.
Shaw visited and collaborated with many scientists and
engineers abroad during his career, particularly in Japan,
Europe, and India; he always gave generously of his time and
expertise to colleagues overseas. He was a Fulbright Guest
Professor at Aachen Technical University (Germany) in 1957;
Lucas Professor at the University of Birmingham (United
Kingdom) in 1960, 1961, and 1964; guest professor at Munich
Technical University (Germany) in 1964; guest professor at
Danish Technical University in 1982; and visiting and guest
professor at several universities in the United States.
His contributions to research and teaching were widely
recognized. He was granted honorary degrees by the University
of Louvain (Belgium) and Drexel University. He was a founding
member of CIRP, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences
and the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, an honorary
member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME), and a member of the Society of Manufacturing
Engineers’ College of Fellows, among others.
The walls of his study were covered with awards, including
the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1956); George
Westinghouse Award of the American Society of Engineering
Education (ASEE) (1956); Fulbright-Hays Professorship (1957);
American Society of Tool and Manufacturing Engineers
(ASTME) (now SME or the Society of Manufacturing Engineers)
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MILTON CLAYTON SHAW
Gold Medal (1958); Society of Tribology and Lubrication
Engineers National Award (1964); ASME Mayo D. Hersey Award
(1967); American Abrasive Society Award (1969); American
Society of Metals Wilson Award (1971); ASME Thurston Lecture
(1971); SME International Education Award (1980); MIT Ralph
Cross Award (1982); ASME Medal (1985); Tribology Gold Medal
from the British Tribology Trust (1985); and Georg Schlesinger
Award (1997).
Shaw published more than 300 technical papers and four
books and edited the proceedings of several conferences. He
held 19 U.S. and foreign patents and was a consultant for some
150 companies in the United States and abroad. His classic
book, Metal Cutting Principles, was originally published in 1953
by MIT Press and was republished by Oxford University Press
(OUP) in 1984; a revised second edition was published by OUP
in 2005. Shaw was coauthor, with Fred Macks, of The Analysis
and Lubrication of Bearings (McGraw-Hill Book Company,
1949) and author of Principles of Abrasive Processing (Oxford
University Press, 1966) and Engineering Problem Solving: A
Classical Perspective (Noyes Publications, 2001). The latter is an
introduction to engineering for students trying to decide which
branch of engineering to pursue.
Toward the end of his life, Shaw was still investigating
questions he had not fully answered, such as the role of micro-
cracks in machining, size effect, and thermoplastic shear
instability versus brittle fracture in the machining of hard
materials. His last paper, published in 2003, was an investigation
of the size effect in metal cutting.
Milton Shaw’s 60 plus years of pioneering research led
to improvements in the productivity, quality, and cost of
material-removal processes that benefited industry and
society in general. His research results led to many important
technological developments, and his scholarship was an
inspiration to countless engineers and educators. A role model
and mentor to researchers in the United States and abroad, he
brought dignity and respect to manufacturing-engineering
research and education.
Mary Jane Shaw, his wife of 67 years, a college graduate in
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266 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
romance languages, typed and proofread all of his manuscripts.
The Shaw home was always open to students from all over the
world, on a personal and professional level. The Shaws helped
rebuild bridges between the United States and Germany and
Japan following World War II and opened doors for many
students from India. They also traveled widely and made
friends all over the world.
Professor Shaw is survived by his wife, Mary Jane; daughter,
Barbara Zitzewitz; two grandchildren; and four great-
grandchildren. His son, Milton Stanley Shaw, died in 1992.
Shaw was as active at home as he was at the university. In the
early years, he undertook several home improvement projects:
designing and constructing an underground garage, adding
two bedrooms and a bath to the house, and building a garage for
his parents. He was an avid gardener and always kept the yard
in beautiful condition. He involved both family and students
in boating, water skiing, and snow skiing. He took an active role
in guiding his children’s and grandchildren’s education and
ensured that they had the resources to pursue their interests at
the best colleges and universities. He also encouraged them to
travel abroad, to become familiar with other cultures and ways
of life. Shaw loved children and, in his later years, he enjoyed
playing with his great-grandchildren. He saw in them and their
exuberance confirmation this new generation would continue
on the course he had set, just as the previous ones had. He would
have loved to witness that.
A few years ago, reflecting on the fullness of his life, Shaw
wrote: “In looking back, there is little I would change. I have
found it stimulating to work closely with young people and to
see them mature and go on to take an important place in society.
I believe this is the most satisfying aspect of my entire career.”
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