Alan Neville Gent

Alan Neville Gent (11 November 1927 – 20 September 2012) was an English scientist who contributed to understanding adhesion physics, and fracture of rubbery, crystalline and glassy polymers.

• Discoverer of the Fletcher-Gent effect
• Originator of the Gent hyperelastic model
• Investigated the O-ring failure in the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
• Editor/author of the textbook Engineering with Rubber
• Studied the conditions that cause cavitation in rubber under the action of hydrostatic tensile loading

He was born in Leicester, England.He earned degrees in physics and math at the University of London, finally receiving a doctorate there in 1955 on the mechanics of deformation and fracture of rubber and plastics.

At age 17, he worked as a research assistant at the John Bull Rubber Co. He served in the British Army from 1947-49. He then became a research physicist and later a principal physicist at the British Rubber Producer's Research Association.

Gent joined the faculty of the University of Akron in 1961, spending nearly a half century at the school.

Gent had been assistant director of the Institute of Polymer Science, dean of graduate studies and research, as well as a researcher and professor.

Gent received the Charles Goodyear Medal from the ACS Rubber Division in 1990, and also the George S. Whitby teaching award. Among a number of other honors he received was the Colwyn Medal of the Plastics and Rubber Institute in 1978.He received the 1975 Bingham Medal.

He died 20 September 2012 at the age of 85.