Jack R. Vinson, H. Fletcher Brown Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has been teaching at the University long enough that his first students are nearing retirement age. But, Vinson himself is not ready to leave a career that has spanned half a century and has included stints in the military, industry and academia.

"I enjoy what I do, and there are always new challenges," he says. "It never gets old for me." He also is still writing textbooks, recently completing his seventh volume on composite structures.

Vinson says he knew in high school that he wanted to become an engineer. "In those days, if you were good at math and physics, it was logical that you became an engineer," he recalls. "I graduated from high school at age 16 in 1946, right after World War II, so engineering was a big thing, and everyone was becoming aware of technology."

After earning a five-year bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University, Vinson studied at Cambridge and then spent time in the Air Force. At Wright Patterson Air Force Base, he worked in the aeronautical research lab on high-temperature materials and landing-gear dynamics. In 1956, he joined General Electric and, when the company moved him to Philadelphia, he enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania.

It was in his first year with GE that Vinson, whose name has since been consistently associated with composite materials, actually encountered these novel materials for the first time.

"GE was evaluating the feasibility of the first Atlas ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile]," he explains. "In the first flights, they weren't sure the missile would survive re-entry because they calculated that the copper material used to make it came close to the melting point. So, to maximize the chance of getting data, they tested a nozzle made of chopped glass in a melamine resin. This was the first composite material for aerospace applications.

"In those days, there were only about 150 people in the whole division. One of my first assignments was to help analyze what happened during water re-entry at terminal velocity to this 18-inch spherical shell. I developed the analysis to predict whether or not it would break when dropped out of a helicopter at 5,000 feet, and my predictions turned out to be correct."

Vinson left GE in the early 1960s to join a start-up company called Dyna Structures, created by a group of Penn faculty to investigate a new solid propellant rocket motor for the Air Force. "Nobody knew how a 'trash can filled with Velveeta cheese' would operate," Vinson says with a laugh.

When one of his colleagues at Penn went on sabbatical in 1962, Vinson taught a course for him and was bitten by the teaching bug. "I always say teaching is very addictive, so don't try it unless you're prepared to teach full time," he says.

In September 1964, Vinson joined UD as an associate professor of engineering mechanics in the civil engineering department. By the next year, however, he had switched departments, having been offered the position of chairperson in mechanical engineering.

Vinson may have changed departments, but he hadn't changed interests. Within five years, in the fall 1969 semester, he was teaching the University's first course in composite materials. The following spring, Tsu-Wei Chou taught the second one. UD has offered a course in composites every year since then, for undergraduate as well as graduate students.

However, Vinson and Chou didn't want to limit their composites activities to the classroom.

"By 1973," Vinson says, "we decided to start a Center. I envisioned it as a kind of academic 'sandbox,' to which people could bring their own toys and play. Although we asked for University-wide support, we stressed that the Center would not need additional administrative funding."

The Center for Composite Materials was approved in 1974, and Byron Pipes joined the faculty from Drexel University.

"We were pleased because he would make the third leg of the 'composites stool'--I represented structures, Tsu-Wei represented materials and Byron was the experimentalist," says Vinson, who was director of the Center and chairperson of mechanical engineering from 1974-78. In 1978, the two jobs were separated, and Pipes became Center director while Vinson remained department chairperson.

One of Vinson's main goals for the fledgling Center was for it to be a place "where people throughout the world could come together for graduate studies, postdoctoral work and sabbatical leaves," he says. "It would be a true Center, where people would come to learn about composites and go forth to promote and strengthen the industry. What was brilliant was Pipes' idea to go to industry for funding. He started the Industry-University Consortium, which had 37 members at its peak. Half of their support was for self-directed research. The other half was to support technology transfer, such as research reports [and] symposia. And, it is still going strong. In fact, CCM celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1999."

Vinson says he always has believed that the future is composites, and his current vision of that future includes a focus on manufacturing, with applications in bridges and ship structures.

"Forty percent of bridges in the United States are either structurally unsound or operationally deficient," he points out, "and there isn't enough government funding to replace them by conventional means. So, for the first time, we don't have to try to sell composites_. People are coming to us." In addition to bridges, Vinson says, other candidates for composite materials include helicopter hangars and ship decks and masts.

As for his personal plans, is retirement in the cards? Not yet, he says.

"I really enjoy the team research I've been involved in recently," Vinson says. "I get to work with the best from all over the United States and the world. It has many advantages, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. I plan to continue to teach and do research for as long as it remains enjoyable, and I'm having more fun doing this than ever."

--Diane Kukich, AS '73, '84M and Tom Frey, EG '84, '90M