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ARTHUR THOMAS IPPEN
1907-1974
BY HUNTER ROUSE
A RTHUR T. IPPEN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Professor Emeritus, died on April 5, 1974, of a heart attack at his
home in Belmont, Massachusetts. An internationally known hy-
draulic engineer, his many professional contributions had been
almost equally divided among the fields of education, research, and
consulting, and his great personal warmth made him as widely
loved as respected.
Born in London, England, of German parents on July 28, 1907,
Dr. Ippen was educated in the schools of Lindau-am-Bodensee and
Aachen, Germany, the Technische Hochschule of the latter city
granting him the Diplom-Ingenieur degree in civil engineering in
1931. During his undergraduate years he served as draftsman with
the municipal waterworks of Aachen, and the year thereafter as
teaching and research assistant with the Hochschule. In September
of 1932 he received an exchange fellowship from the Institute of
International Education and journeyed to Iowa City for graduate
study and research in hydraulics at the State University of Iowa.
After the sudden death of his faculty advisor, Floyd Nagler, he
transferred to the California Institute of Technology in December
of 1933, where he was to remain the next five years as graduate
student, research associate, and instructor.
Under California Institute of Technology professors Theodor
van Karman and Robert Knapp, Ippen conducted experimental
and analytical investigations in the fields of sediment transport and
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high-velocity open-channel {low. His doctoral dissertation (1936)
on the latter topic represented the first American development of
the sonic-wave analogy to free-surface flow. Continued research
and writing on this subject earned him an award from the Ameri-
can Society of Civil Engineers, and his experimental technique
soon found application in the wave tanks supplementing super-
sonic wind tunnels.
Dr. Ippen received an appointment as Instructor in Civil En-
gineering at Lehigh University in August of 1938; there he as-
sumed charge of instruction and research in hydraulics and was
promoted to Assistant Professor in 1939. Principal among his
projects was the determination of the influence of fluid viscosity on
the performance of centrifugal pumps. In September 1945 Ippen
accepted an appointment as Associate Professor of Hydraulics in
the Civil Engineering Department at MIT. There he took over the
operation of a small river hydraulics laboratory dating from before
World War II and began the fourfold task of teaching, attracting a
staff and graduate-student following, developing a research pro-
gram, and designing a new laboratory.
The resulting two-story structure was completed in 1951 and
dedicated as the MIT Hydrodynamics Laboratory. By this time a
senior staff of five and thirteen graduate assistants had been
enlisted, and a dozen or more contract projects were under way.
Initial fields of study included the sonic analogy, transient {lows,
instrumentation, turbulence, cavitation, shoaling waves, stratified
flow, and sediment transport. With the passage of time, the staff
and student body continued to increase in size and quality, and the
additional fields of water resources and coastal engineering came
to receive primary emphasis in the program. Eventually, in 1970,
the laboratory structure was enlarged by two more stories and
renamed the Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Water Resources
and Hydrodynamics, and three years later Dr. Ippen retired from
its directorship.
During the course of his professional life, Dr. Ippen published
some fifty-eight technical papers, edited one book, and was the
author or coauthor of twenty-nine laboratory reports on contract
research. He held more than thirty consulting appointments with
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industrial firms, governmental agencies, and foreign countries. He
traveled extensively, both as a consultant and as a lecturer, and
spent sabbatical leaves in Germany and in Japan. For several years
he chaired the MIT Council on International Affairs, overseeing
joint programs with institutions such as the Technical University of
Berlin and the Birla Institute of Technology in India. A particular
love was the International Association for Hydraulic Research
(lAHR), which he served as President from 1959 to 1963; two
noteworthy accomplishments during this period were the estab-
lishment of the association's journal of Hydraulic Research and the
encouragement of regional meeting, initially in Latin America and
later in Asia. He was likewise active in the Hydraulics Division of
the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), serving in 1959-60
as Chairman of its Executive Committee; he also chaired three
other committees and was involved in establishing the Engineering
Mechanics Division.
Dr. Ippen was elected to the National Academy of Engineering
in April 1967. He also held membership in the following organiza-
tions: Tau Beta Pi, Chi Epsilon, and Sigma Xi fraternities; the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences; American Academy of
Environmental Engineering; American Geophysical Union;
American Society for Engineering Education; American Society of
Mechanical Engineers; American Water Resources Association;
and the Boston Society of Civil Engineers (President, 1960-611.
Included among the many honors that he received were doctorates
from the University of Toulouse, France, the University of
Karlsruhe, Germany, and the University of Manchester, England;
honorary membership in the Japan Society of Civil Engineers, the
International Association for Hydraulic Research, and the Ven-
ezuelan Society of Hydraulic Engineers; the Vincent Bendix
Award of the American Society for Engineering Education, the
Prechtl Medal of the Technical University of Vienna, the Karl Emil
Hilgard Prize of the ASCE, the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal
of the Department of the Army, the Distinguished Alumnus Award
of Caltech; a Ford Prolessorship at MIT; and finally the MIT Insti-
tute Professorship.
While still at Pasadena, Arthur I ppen married Elizabeth
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Wagenplatz, whom he had known as a student at Aachen, and their
two children—Erich Peter and Karen Ann—were born during
their years in Bethlehem. His wife died in 1953. In 1955
Ippen married Ruth Calvert of Pasadena, who was to share the
remaining two decades of his very productive life. His second heart
attack, in 1974, proved fatal. In addition to his wife and two
children, he left behind a step-daughter, a brother in Germany,
and three grandchildren not to mention the memories cherished
by countless former students, colleagues, and friends throughout
the world.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
civil engineering
