Bernarr E Hopkins OBE FIMMM 1919-2004

摘要

Bernarr Hopkins, known to friends and colleagues as Hoppy, died recently aged 85 and was a stalwart figure in the Metallurgy and the then Materials Applications Division at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) for over thirty years. Hoppy joined NPL from The Mond Nickel Company (now INCO) in 1947. In the early part of his career he led the effort to characterise the properties of alloys of high purity iron - a key factor being the development of a laboratory process to produce 50kg quantities of iron with very low levels of residual elements. The success of this work in providing fundamental data on the alloys of iron provided a basis for developments in alloy steels and earned NPL an international reputation. In the early 1960s his interests switched to non-ferrous materials, and to alloys for high temperature applications in particular. A major programme involved the development of chromium alloys for gas turbine parts, as at that time it was believed (wrongly, as it turned out) that the Ni-Cr alloys were near the limit of their temperature capability. Chromium is notoriously brittle at ambient temperatures and Hoppy brought his knowledge of brittle fracture to bear in understanding this new system. In the event, the work on chromium did not have a successful outcome, but the research he supported on the continued improvement of the Ni-base alloys contributed to the great advances that were made in these materials and which have led, along with other engineering developments, to cheap air travel today Much of the work on Ni-base alloys was carried out as part of the COST Programme, which involved widespread European collaboration. Hoppy initially had a leading role in this landmark activity that gave NPL a central position in the European materials community, and COST remains today the most effective and highly regarded of the European materials programmes.