Fluid Transients in Pipeline Systems

Professor A. R. David Thorley BSc, MPhil, PhD, CEng, FIMechE, FICE, MemASME. Professor Emeritus of Fluid Engineering - City University, London, UK. Professor Thorley's engineering career began as an apprentice in the automobile industry, followed by a period as a graduate engineer in the electricity supply industry. Since joining the academic sector, he has maintained strong links with industry through extensive consultancy, research and development. This latter activity has been concerned with a variety of projects in the field of fluid engineering, predominantly concerned with the design of safe and reliable piping systems for the water, oil, nuclear and petrochemical industries, for which he has acquired an international reputation. The principal themes in this work have been the need to apply engineering common sense and judgement to challenge underlying assumptions in, and designs of, real piping systems, since most such systems are unique and yet a single mistake can have catastrophic consequences. Arising from his academic and R&D activities, Professor Thorley has published some 62 journal and conference papers, 50 industrial reports and briefing papers to project sponsors. He has also written, or been joint author of, books on fluid transients and the design of anchor blocks. In 1983 Professor Thorley founded the Thermo-Fluids Engineering Research Centre at City University and assembled around him a number of colleagues active in applying their skills to solving and understanding problems in thermo-fluids engineering, which would directly benefit UK industry. Much of their work related to the energy sector and attracted funding from industry at home and abroad, as well as from Research Councils. From 1993 to 1999 Professor Thorley was Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics, then Dean of the School of Engineering from 1999 to 2001, embracing activities in aeronautical, civil, electrical and electronic, and mechanical engineering. Among his professional activities, Professor Thorley has contributed to the organization of several international conferences on unsteady and transient flows in pipeline systems and been Chairman of three of them. He has been an active member of ESDU working parties for Design Items, and Scientific Advisor and representative of the EEC Commissioners for a transient flow project at the Delft Hydraulics Laboratory in the Netherlands. He has travelled and lectured overseas professionally on numerous occasions, visiting India, Indonesia, North and South Africa, and North and South America, often by invitation and sometimes at the instigation of the British Council. He is registered with the World Bank as a consultant and has been an expert witness in the High Court in London. Professor Thorley is married with three grown-up children. They share many activities as a family, but specific interests include sailing (the Caribbean, Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Far East), and travel. He is a member of the Little Ship Club and Cruising Association, and a Governor of the RNLI. Since retiring from full-time employment he has extended his sailing including a trans-Atlantic passage to the Caribbean where he is currently cruising among the islands.