RICHARD G. FOLSOM (1907-1996)

BY ROGER R. SCHMIDT

RICHARD GILMAN FOLSOM was considered an authority and leading scholar in the theory and practice of fluid dynamics. He passed away on March 11, 1996, in Napa, California, at the age of 89.

Richard G. Folsom was born on Feb. 3, 1907, in Los Angeles, California, to Harry Gilman and Caroline Mabel Hazard Folsom. After receiving his doctorate degree in 1932 from the California Institute of Technology, Folsom joined the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught in the Mechanical Engineering Department from 1933-53 and was chair for the last four years. His teaching activities at the university level covered a wide range of subject matter, principally involving all phases of fluid mechanics in several professional engineering fields (aeronautics, astronautics, chemical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and mining). From 1953-58 he was director of the University of Michigan’s Engineering Research Institute and professor of mechanical engineering. In 1958 Folsom became the 12th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, retiring in 1971. And from 1961-71 he was also president of the Hartford Graduate Center, which is affiliated with Rensselaer.

His engineering work, including participation and consulting, involved applications, development, and research, principally in the areas of fluid flow. He was involved in diverse research projects, including food preservation by atomic energy, landing of supersonic aircraft, development of upper-atmosphere research, machining of tough metals, high-temperature metallurgy, acoustics, industrial air pollution, and the building of structures to resist bomb blasts. During World War II he was instrumental in developing the landing vehicles used at Normandy and in the Pacific. His studies were published in numerous professional and technical journals, and he presented over 60 papers in the fields of mechanical and chemical engineering and higher education.

In the area of rockets and jet propulsion, he had responsibility at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the preliminary design of some $20 million worth of new testing and research equipment. As a consultant to The Ohio State University on a government contract, his work was pioneering in the use of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for liquid rocket motors. For Aero Jet General Corporation, his work included the design of high-speed pumps, methods to eliminate cavitation, heat transfer, and nozzle designs.

Over several years, he was the senior chief investigator for an experimental program at UC Berkeley for studying heat transfer and fluid flow problems associated with solid bodies moving through rarified gases. The results of this work were necessary for the design of equipment for satellite flights.

In the area of hydraulic pumps, while working for Food Machinery Corporation, he had direct responsibility for the hydraulic design of a complete line of commercial high-efficiency propeller pumps. At UC Berkeley, he spent considerable time advising the Vertical Turbine Pump Manufacturing Association as well as the individual companies on problems connected with field and laboratory performance testing and pump design, including special problems such as impeller wear, bearing wear, shaft vibrations, materials, clearances, dynamic bearing hydraulic loading, et cetera.

Folsom consulted for the United States Navy, where he undertook the development from design through production of new trim and drain pumps for submarines. The work was done under his direct supervision and resulted in pumps with increased and more flexible performance and the elimination of many sources of noise.

While at UC Berkeley, and in cooperation with several pump manufacturing companies, he developed a practical method to predict the combined performance of centrifugal-jet pump combinations. The results of much of the testing work at UC Berkeley appeared in the professional engineering press.

Concerning fluid measuring devices, he was responsible for many laboratory investigations and professional engineering work in the flow of compressible and incompressible fluids, involving orifices, nozzles, current meters, pitot tubes, and related measuring equipment. He served for many years on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Committee for Fluid Meters.

He was one of the senior investigators and a co-author of reports of laboratory investigations and analysis concerned with the flow of granular solids and liquids in pipelines and associated studies of pipe friction factors.

During his career, he was advisor, consultant, or board member for a variety of corporations and political entities as well as academic, technical, scientific, and military institutions and organizations. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the ASME, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the American Society for Engineering Education. During his association with ASME, Folsom was an honorary director, 91st president, Wright Lecturer, and Centennial Medallion Award recipient. As part of his 1972-73 ASME presidency he provided an oral history in which he said, “We’ve got to look at engineering on an international basis, to have an influence and gain experience.”

Folsom was one of the first two people elected to the Mechanical Engineering Section of the National Academy of Engineering in the Academy’s first year of existence.

Among his many awards, Folsom received a Navy Distinguished Service Award for engineering contributions and the 1971 Benjamin Garver Lamme Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. He was also granted honorary doctorate degrees from Northwestern University in 1962 and Union College in 1964. In 1979 Folsom received the Distinguished Service Award from the Rensselaer Alumni Association, which recognized distinguished service by alumni or friends to Rensselaer, to a profession, to the nation, or to humanity.

R. Bryon Pipes (NAE 1987), Rensselaer’s 17th president, said, “With strong, confident and dynamic leadership, Richard Folsom transformed Rensselaer, making it a true technological university.” Under Folsom’s leadership, Rensselaer built the Materials Research Center, the Jonsson-Rowland Science Center, Cogswell Laboratory, the Darrin Communications Center, the Rensselaer Union, and the Freshman dormitory complex. Folsom raised Rensselaer’s academic standards, expanded the school’s outreach to elementary and secondary schools, strengthened the university’s fundraising efforts, and enlarged the student population. The Richard Gilman Folsom Library at Rensselaer, completed in 1976, was dedicated in his honor.

Some of his more noteworthy committee activities included chairman of the Engineering College Research Council, a research-information clearing house for all engineering colleges; chairman of the Curriculum Review Board for the U.S. Naval Academy, which in 1959 conducted an intensive study and recommended substantial adjustments and changes in the academic programs of the academy; chairman of the National Bureau of Standards Advisory Committee to the Building Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences, which in 1962 recommended the establishment of a National Institute of Building Research to direct the research activities of the Nation’s building industry; and service on the following committees of the National Academy of Engineering: the Panel on Laser Mirror Reliability (ex officio member; 1982-84); the Committee on Mechanical Reliability (chair; 1978-83), and the Council of the National Academy of Engineering (councilor; 1975-78). He also served as a member of the Secretary’s Advisory Board for the educational requirements for the Navy, the New York State Advisory Council on higher education, and the Committee on Organization in Engineering Schools of the Engineering Colleges Administrative Council. In 1967 Folsom was chairman of Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s newly created Electric Power Committee to determine New York State’s future power requirements, which were expected to double in 10 years. The committee would define the future power requirements of the state and recommend the organizational and financial means to achieve the lowest practical costs of power.

Folsom bore a strong sense of civic duty during his time living in the tri-city area in New York comprised of Troy, Schenectady, and Albany. He was director of the Greater Troy Chamber of Commerce, director and vice president of the United Community Services, chairman of the Education Committee “Fifty Group,” member of the New York State Advisory Council for the Advancement of Industrial Research and Development, and member of Rensselaer County Junior Museum and Historical Society.

Folsom’s wife of 58 years, Carroll Grace (neé Greene), passed away in 1987. They had two children, Ronald and Margaret.

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Much of the information in this tribute is from archives.rpi.edu/institute-history/richard-gilman-folsom.