Forman A. Williams

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Forman A. Williams

|image = File:Forman A. Williams.jpg

|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1934|01|12}}

|birth_place = New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S.

|death_date =

|death_place =

|field = Fluid dynamics
Combustion
Aerospace Engineering

|work_institutions = Harvard University
University of California, San Diego
Princeton University
Yale University

|alma_mater = Princeton University
California Institute of Technology

| thesis_title = Theoretical Studies In Heterogeneous Combustion

| thesis_year = 1958

|doctoral_advisor = Stanford S. Penner{{Cite web | url=https://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=154055 | title=Stanford Penner - the Mathematics Genealogy Project}}

|doctoral_students = Chung K. Law
Carlos Fernández-Pello
Jong S. Kim

|known_for = G equation
Williams–Boltzmann equation
Williams diagram
Clavin–Williams equation
Peters-Williams chemistry
Seshadri–Williams formula
Activation energy asymptotics
Cool flame
Klimov-Williams criterion
San Diego Mechanism
Flame stretch
Combustion instabilities
Laminar flamelet model

|influences =

|influenced =

|prizes =

|signature =

}}

Forman Arthur Williams (born January 12, 1934) is an American academic in the field of combustion and aerospace engineering who is Emeritus Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California San Diego.{{Cite web | url=http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/faculty/faculty_bios/index.sfe?fmp_recid=157 | title=UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering}}

Education

Williams received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1955 and on Martin Summerfield's advice, he moved to California Institute of Technology to pursue his PhD, graduating it in 1958 under the supervision of Sol Penner, with Richard Feynman on the thesis committee.{{Cite web | url=https://thesis.library.caltech.edu/139/1/Williams_fa_1958.pdf | title=Theoretical Studies in Heterogeneous Combustion | first=Forman A. | last=Williams | website=thesis.library.caltech.edu}} He presented his PhD thesis to von Kármán at his home, who had influenced Williams greatly.{{Cite web | url=http://maeweb.ucsd.edu/node/647 | title=History | Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering}}

Career

After finishing his PhD, Williams worked in the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics at Harvard University until 1964, after which he joined the faculty at UCSD. He was the fourth faculty member to be appointed, when Sol Penner founded the Engineering department in University of California, San Diego. In January 1981, he accepted the Robert H. Goddard chair at Princeton, eventually returning to UCSD in 1988. Williams also served as an adjunct Professor at Yale University for one month of each year starting in 1997 and culminating after ten years. He was also the director of Center for Energy Research from 1990 to 2006 at UCSD. He served as a department chair at UCSD for four years.

Research

Williams' research interests includes combustion, propulsion applications, micro-gravity flames etc. He made seminal contributions to the combustion field for the past six decades and considered as one of the prominent scientist in combustion.{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/00102202.2015.975005 | volume=187 | issue=1–2 | title=Preface to the Special Issue Celebrating Professor forman a. Williams'S 80th Birthday | journal=Combustion Science and Technology | pages=1–2| year=2015 | last1=Law | first1=Chung K. |author2-link=Vigor Yang| last2=Yang | first2=Vigor | s2cid=94126136 }} He wrote the Williams spray equation in 1958Williams, F. A. "Spray combustion and atomization." The physics of fluids 1.6 (1958): 541-545. when he was still a PhD student, as a statistical model for spray combustion analogous to Boltzmann equation. Though Activation Energy Asymptotics were known to Russian scientists forty years ago, it was Williams' call in 1971 in Annual Review of Fluid MechanicsWilliams, F. A. "Theory of combustion in laminar flows." Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 3.1 (1971): 171-188. which made the western scientific community to start using the analysis.Buckmaster, John David, and Geoffrey Stuart Stephen Ludford. Theory of laminar flames. Cambridge University Press, 1982. He wrote down the G equation in 1985,Williams, F. A. "Turbulent combustion." The mathematics of combustion 2 (1985): 267-294. a model for premixed turbulent flame as a wrinkled flame. The classification of Combustion instabilities was first introduced by Williams and Barrère in 1969.Barrere, M., & Williams, F. A. (1969, January). Comparison of combustion instabilities found in various types of combustion chambers. In Symposium (International) on Combustion (Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 169-181). Elsevier. He introduced the concepts flame stretch and laminar flamelets. Further, he introduced the Williams diagram which classifies different regimes in turbulent combustion.

He worked on number of projects with NASA, Air force and other organizations. He is the principal investigator of the following International Space Station experiments,

MDCA (Multi-user Droplet Combustion Apparatus), FSDC (Fiber Supported Droplet Combustion), FSDC-2 (Fiber Supported Droplet Combustion - 2),{{Cite journal|url=https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19990019814.pdf|title=Fiber Supported Droplet Combustion-2 (FSDC-2)|first1=Renato|last1=Colantonio|first2=Daniel|last2=Dietrich|first3=John B.|last3=Haggard|first4=Vedha|last4=Nayagan|first5=Frederick L.|last5=Dryer|first6=Benjamin D.|last6=Shaw|first7=Forman A.|last7=Williams|date=November 1, 1998|journal=Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL-1)|via=ntrs.nasa.gov}} DCE (Droplet Combustion Experiment),{{Cite journal|url=https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19990019805.pdf|title=Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE)|first1=John B.|last1=Haggard|first2=Vedha|last2=Nayagan|first3=Frederick L.|last3=Dryer|first4=Forman A.|last4=Williams|date=November 1, 1998|journal=Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL-1)|via=ntrs.nasa.gov}} FLEX (Flame Extinguishment Experiment),{{Cite web|url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission/station/research-explorer/|title=Space Station Research Explorer on NASA.gov}} FLEX-2 (Flame Extinguishment Experiment - 2),{{Cite web|url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission/station/research-explorer/|title=Space Station Research Explorer on NASA.gov}} Cool Flames Investigation.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1947.html|title = Experiment Details}} He conducted lot of experiments, some of his recent experiments include spiral flames in von Kármán swirling flow, ethanol flames, fire spread etc.

Publications

Williams Combustion Theory, second edition published in 1985, is still an authoritative book in the combustion field.

=Books=

{{cite book|author=Stanford S. Penner, Forman A. Williams (Eds)|title=Detonation and Two-Phase Flow|year=1962|publisher=Academic Press|isbn=978-0-12-395556-2}}
{{cite book|author=Forman A. Williams, Marcel Barrère, N. C. Huang|title=Fundamental aspects of solid propellant rockets|year=1969|publisher=Technivision Services}} {{cite web | url=http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/701545.pdf | title=Fundamental aspects of solid propellant rockets }}{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
{{cite book|author=Paul A. Libby, Forman A. Williams (Eds)|title=Turbulent reacting flows|year=1980|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-662-31257-5}}
{{cite book|author=Forman A. Williams|title=Combustion Theory|year=1985|publisher=Benjamin Cummings|isbn=978-0201407778}}
{{cite book|author=Paul C. Fife, Amable Liñán, Forman A. Williams (Eds)|title=Dynamical Issues in Combustion Theory|year=1991|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1461269571}}
{{cite book|author=Amable Liñán, Forman A. Williams|title=Fundamental Aspects of Combustion|year=1993|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0195076264}}
{{cite book|author=Forman A. Williams, A.K. Oppenheim, D.B. Olfe, M. Lapp (Eds)|title=Modern Developments in Energy, Combustion and Spectroscopy|year=1993|publisher=Pergamon Press|isbn=978-0080420196}}
{{cite book|author=Paul A. Libby, Forman A. Williams (Eds)|title=Turbulent reacting flows|year=1994|publisher=Academic Press|isbn=978-0124479456}}

=Lecture Notes=

{{cite book|author=Forman A. Williams|title=Some Mathematical Methods useful in Applied Science|year=1972}}

Honors

Williams is an elected member of National Academy of Engineering (1988){{Cite web | url=https://www.nae.edu/27726.aspx | title=Dr. Forman A. Williams}} and also in American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010).{{Cite web | url=https://www.amacad.org/person/forman-williams | title=Forman A. Williams| date=3 October 2024}} He is a fellow of The Combustion Institute.{{Cite web | url=https://www.combustioninstitute.org/resources/awards/fellows-of-the-combustion-institute/ | title=Fellows of the Combustion Institute | the Combustion Institute| work=The Combustion Institute | Promoting and disseminating combustion science research| date=20 June 2017}} He is elected as a fellow of APS in 2002.{{Cite web | url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm?initial=W&year=2017&unit_id=&institution= | title=APS Fellow Archive}} He is also a member of AIAA, SIAM etc. He holds an honorary doctorate degree from Technical University of Madrid. He has been in the editorial board of various journals, currently he is in the editorial board of Progress in Energy and Combustion Science,{{Cite web | url=https://www.elsevier.com/journals/progress-in-energy-and-combustion-science/0360-1285/editorial-board | title=Editorial board - Progress in Energy and Combustion Science - ISSN 0360-1285}} Combustion Science and Technology.{{Cite web | url=http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=editorialBoard&journalCode=gcst20 | title=Combustion Science and Technology}} He was a member of the National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee in reporting the Collapse of the World Trade Center.{{Cite web |url=http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/pulse/spring2003/faculty_honors.shtml |title=PULSE - UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering Newsletter |access-date=2020-06-06 |archive-date=2020-05-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200503222442/http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/pulse/spring2003/faculty_honors.shtml |url-status=dead }}{{Cite journal|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0734904114528457|doi = 10.1177/0734904114528457|title = Comments on the National Institute of Standards and Technology Investigation of the 2001 World Trade Center Fires|year = 2014|last1 = Quintiere|first1 = James G.|last2 = Williams|first2 = Forman A.|journal = Journal of Fire Sciences|volume = 32|issue = 3|pages = 281–291|s2cid = 112642526}} Some of his awards include:

Guggenheim Fellowship (1970) from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Silver Combustion Medal (1978) from The Combustion Institute
Alexander von Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Award (1982)
Bernard Lewis Gold Medal (1990) from The Combustion Institute{{Cite news | url=https://www.combustioninstitute.org/resources/awards/bernard-lewis-gold-medal/ | title=Bernard Lewis Gold Medal | the Combustion Institute| newspaper=The Combustion Institute | Promoting and Disseminating Combustion Science Research| date=24 June 2016}}
Pendray Aerospace Literature Award (1993) from AIAA{{Cite web | url=https://www.aiaa.org/HonorsAndAwardsRecipientsList.aspx?awardId=06e6f72d-461b-4f41-990f-1c63a3e3d51f | title=Home : The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics}}
Numa Manson Medal (1995) from ICDERS{{cite web | url=http://www.icders.org/awards.html | title=Awards }}
Thermal Engineering Award for International Activity (1999) from JSME
Propellants & Combustion Award (2004) from AIAA{{Cite web | url=https://www.aiaa.org/HonorsAndAwardsRecipientsList.aspx?awardId=dbb68683-7b50-4d5b-94a4-cf8eb99a9c6f | title=Home : The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | access-date=2017-04-13 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170414080744/https://www.aiaa.org/HonorsAndAwardsRecipientsList.aspx?awardId=dbb68683-7b50-4d5b-94a4-cf8eb99a9c6f | archive-date=2017-04-14 | url-status=dead }}
Distinguished Public Service Medal (2017) from NASA{{Cite web|url=https://www.nasa.gov/specials/2017medalhonorees/#dsm|title=NASA's 2017 Distinguished Public Service Medal Honorees|access-date=2020-06-06|archive-date=2022-12-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221202022002/https://www.nasa.gov/specials/2017medalhonorees/#dsm|url-status=dead}}

A conference titled Symposium on Advancements in Combustion Theory was conducted at UCSD in 2004 in honor of Williams 70th birthday.{{Cite journal | doi=10.1080/00102200590926879|title = Preface| journal=Combustion Science and Technology| volume=177| issue=5–6| pages=843–844|year = 2005|last1 = Law|first1 = Chung K.| last2=Peters| first2=Norbert| s2cid=218574476 }} Combustion Science and Technology released a special issue in honor of Williams 80th birthday.Law, C. K., & Yang, V. (2015). Preface to the Special Issue Celebrating Professor forman a. Williams' S 80th Birthday. Combustion Science and Technology, 187(1-2), 1-2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00102202.2015.975005