Quick Facts
Biography
Paul A Libby (born April 9, 1921) is an Emeritus Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego,a specialist in the field of Combustion and Aerospace Engineering.
Biography
Paul Libby received his bachelor's degree in 1942 and obtained his PhD under the supervision of Sol Penner in 1948, both from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He also served in the United States Navy in between his Bachelors and Doctorate degree; he was a Junior Grade Lieutenant when discharged.
He joined the faculty of Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and advanced to the rank of Professor . At that time, the famous aerodynamist Antonio Ferri, a friend of von Kármán joined Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Libby worked with Ferri as an assistant for ten years. In 1962, when Sol Penner was looking for faculty for the newly found Engineering department at University of California, San Diego, Libby was recommended to Penner by von Kármán. He joined UCSD in 1964 as one of the 10 founding faculty member and also a served as department chair for three years from 1973. He also served as acting Dean and associate Dean of Graduate affairs.
Research
Paul Libby's research focused on the wide topics of fluid dynamics which includes, boundary layers, turbulence, aerothermochemistry etc., He along with Keith Stewartson were the first to identify the eigensolutions of boundary layer equations and studied the uniqueness of the solution. Homann-Libby flow is named after Paul Libby for his work on the axisymmetric stagnation point flows. Paul Libby along with Kenneth Bray discovered important phenomena in gradient transport of turbulent flames through series of papers in 80s and considered as important addition to the turbulent combustion.
Publications
Libby has produced more than 200 journal publications throughout his career. He authored numerous books and monographs, which includes An Introduction to Turbulence, Turbulent Reacting Flows co-authored with Forman A. Williams, Space Flight and Re-Entry Trajectories, A Theoretical Analysis of the Turbulent Mixing of Reactive Gases with Application to the Supersonic Combustion of Hydrogen, Some Perturbation Solutions in Laminar Boundary Layer Theory, Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of Supersonic Combustion
Honors
He was elected as a member of National Academy of Engineering in 1999. He is Guggenheim Fellow and a British Royal Society Guest Fellow.