CHARLES E. TAYLOR (1924-2017)

BY MICHAEL A. SUTTON, JAMES W. PHILLIPS,
AND NANCY R. SOTTOS

CHARLES EDWIN TAYLOR was born on March 24, 1924, in West Lafayette, Indiana, to Alvin Lee Taylor and Ruby Hamilton Taylor. Known to everyone as Chuck, he was especially close to his older brother, Bill. During their early years, they took music lessons together, with Chuck on trombone and Bill on trumpet. The brothers remained passionate about music throughout their lives, with Chuck playing trombone in local bands well into his 80s. Because they were always together and their father owned a monument business, they were called the “Tombstone Twins.” Chuck graduated from Monticello High School in 1941.¹ Both brothers had planned to study music at Indiana University in Bloomington, but a last-minute job offer from an acclaimed dance band in Lafayette led them to enroll at Purdue University instead. With music no longer a practical option at Purdue, Chuck chose between agriculture and engineering, ultimately selecting engineering.

Chuck began his studies at Purdue at the age of 17. While there, he joined the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), hoping to become an officer and attend West Point after graduation. Everything changed on Dec. 7, 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Though Chuck continued his education until 1943, many of his classmates had left for military service, and he decided it was time to enlist. When he joined the U.S. Army, he did not disclose his ROTC background because he wanted to deploy overseas as soon as possible. Had the Army known, he would have been sent directly to West Point to complete Officer Candidate School (OCS). After basic training, he was deployed to the Pacific Theater in November 1944.

As his transport ship zigzagged across the ocean to evade enemy submarines, the convoy became especially alert while crossing an unprotected stretch between California and Hawaii. “After stopping in Hawaii,” Chuck later recalled, “we traveled farther west and near Christmas 1944, we arrived in the Philippines at Manila Bay. After delays due to congestion in the bay, the convoy eventually disembarked. The troops were organized into specific groups and an officer was assigned to take over and move us to our destination. In the dock area, an individual with a set of papers began calling out ‘Charles E. Taylor’ several times while walking around to each group.” Eventually, he found Chuck and, after confirming his identity, announced that he had orders transferring him to OCS at West Point. Chuck had no idea how the Army tracked him down, but somehow, they had. He immediately told the officer he did not want to go to West Point and wished to remain in the Pacific Theater. Hearing the conversation, Chuck’s new commanding officer approached. After reviewing the paperwork — signed by a high-ranking Army officer — he confirmed that Chuck was being reassigned to West Point immediately. Chuck protested again, saying he wanted to serve as a soldier in the Pacific. The commanding officer firmly responded: “Are you a civilian?” In response, Chuck said, “No, sir. I am in the U.S. Army.” “Then you will follow orders,” the officer said, “even if you do not like them.” Realizing he had no choice, Chuck conceded and left with the messenger for reassignment to OCS.

With no immediate transportation available to return him stateside, he was temporarily assigned to the local headquarters until he could get a seat on a plane. While there, Chuck learned that nearby Army artillery batteries remained active due to Japanese forces still in the area. Determined to experience combat service, Chuck arranged a temporary assignment to one of these artillery units. For several weeks, he trained and even participated in firing missions on suspected Japanese activities in the area. Eventually, a seat on a return flight became available. Leaving the battery and Manila, he flew through Hawaii, San Francisco, and Chicago, before arriving in New York. Thus ended Chuck’s combat experience in the Pacific Theater.

Chuck returned to West Point after his brief “front-line” experience when World War II ended. He immediately resigned his commission and returned home to West Lafayette. Still interested in music, he learned about auditions for a band in Bloomington, which would have given him the opportunity to perform and study music at Indiana University. Fortunately for the engineering community, Chuck’s audition did not go well, and he was not offered a spot in the band. He then returned to West Lafayette, re-enrolled at Purdue University on the GI Bill, and began his 50-year career in engineering.

While completing his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1946, Chuck received a research assistantship and was introduced to three-dimensional photoelasticity by Ervin O. “Erv” Stitz, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Given the general assignment of identifying new plastics for use in photoelasticity experiments, Chuck used his findings as the basis for his master’s degree, which he earned in engineering mechanics from Purdue in 1948.

After graduating, Chuck moved to the Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM) Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to begin his doctoral studies. He served as an instructor (1948-51) and assistant professor (1951-52), continuing his research in three-dimensional photoelasticity with encouragement from Thomas J. Dolan. Decades later, Chuck wrote of Dolan, “He was my mentor early in my career and was a good friend for nearly a half century.” During this period, Chuck co-advised his first graduate student, Daniel Post, who earned his master’s degree in 1951. Post recalled in 2021, 70 years later: “Chuck’s sponsored research program at that time was an investigation of railway car wheels.” However, Chuck’s doctoral studies were interrupted by the Korean War. From 1952 to 1954, he served as a civilian engineer at the David Taylor Model Basin at Carderock, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.

Upon arriving at the Model Basin in 1952, Chuck was given the choice of continuing his photoelasticity research on naval geometries or focusing on shell theory in support of the Navy’s submarine fleet. He chose the Composite Structures Group and was promptly named group head.

“E.H. Kennard, Ed Wenk, W.A. Nash, and Gerry Galletly were there—we had a real good group of people working in shell theory. One of the problems that was assigned to me,” he later explained, “was the buckling of conical shells.” Chuck ultimately changed the topic of his doctoral dissertation to shell theory, writing in his thesis in absentia under the direction of Henry Louis Langhaar. He completed his Ph.D. in 1953. Soon after, he was promoted to associate professor in 1955 and full professor in 1957.

Chuck’s early research in shell theory led to several technical publications on pressure-vessel design, particularly for complex shell structures. In 2020, Sam Zamrik, president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2007-08), wrote to Yuh-Jin “Bill” Chao at the University of South Carolina:

“Professor Taylor was one of the most active researchers in photoelasticity from the 1940s to the mid-1960s and made significant contributions in the field of pressure vessels and piping. In 1960 while I was a faculty member at Penn State University, I was involved in a research project dealing with experimental stress analysis on thick-walled pressure vessels with integral nozzle connections. At that time, the project was sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Chuck was a faculty member in the TAM Department at the University of Illinois during that time and was also involved in the project. He was manufacturing and loading complex three-dimensional photoelastic models of pressure vessels with piping connections, extracting thin sections for interior stress measurements in the nozzle–vessel transition regions to verify our results.
Chuck was one of the most pleasant members of our team, very cordial with a great smile. I had many conversations with him and we became close friends, exchanging information over the decades. I visited him many times in the TAM Department, only to hear the great admiration that his colleagues had for him. From my perspective, Chuck Taylor was a founding developer and user of this technology, passing on his knowledge and approach to many university researchers. His contributions have been read and used by investigators and members of the ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division and are considered to be hallmark contributions in the field. He will be missed, but his memory will remain in our hearts.”

Chuck continued his research in three-dimensional photoelasticity for about 15 years after returning to UIUC, with support from the Pressure Vessel Research Committee of the Welding Research Council and other agencies. His work focused on reactor pressure vessels and the intersection of pressure vessels with nozzles.

In the early 1960s, Chuck recalled, “I was interested in doing something different, so we were looking into dynamic photoelasticity. At that time the big problem in getting good dynamic fringe photographs was the fact that no good light sources were available. Just at that time, the ruby laser was developed—and if we were to sit down and write out the specifications for an ideal light source, we would pretty much describe the ruby laser.” The ruby laser was intense, polarized, and monochromatic, and it produced extremely short pulses. “It has everything you could ask for,” Chuck said. “Well, almost. We would rather have a green light, but had to take the red!”

Initially, Chuck employed lasers as illumination sources in photoelastic measurements, publishing his first paper on this topic in 1966 in the newly formed journal Experimental Mechanics. This was followed by several articles exploring pulsed laser systems for high-speed illumination in dynamic photoelastic measurements. As coherent measurement methods advanced in the early 1970s, Chuck and his students began developing and evaluating laser-based surface deformation measurement techniques, including laser speckle and laser-based shearing interferometry, for opaque materials undergoing mechanical loading. He and his students continued working in this field until his retirement from UIUC in 1981.

In 1979, Chuck was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, becoming the first UIUC TAM faculty member to receive the honor.

Reflecting on his tenure at UIUC in 1981, Chuck said he took the most pride in “the success of the graduate students that I’ve been lucky enough to have been associated with—starting with Dan Post and continuing through the present group—and I think that I get more pleasure out of looking at their honors and awards than I do any others, including my own.” Many of Chuck’s students went on to distinguish themselves in experimental mechanics, “which would at least indicate that we didn’t completely ruin them while they were here,” he joked. Post recalled in 2021, “Chuck was a remarkably patient mentor… I am lucky to be in the ‘Taylor’s series,’ and so fortunate to have and revere Chuck as a lifelong friend.”

Continued friendship was Chuck’s greatest priority. “As far as I know, every one of the graduate students that I have ever had I still consider a very close friend,” he said. “I’ve had some fine students. Any success I’ve had would be really primarily due to their work.”

One example of Chuck’s mentorship and research vision was the collaboration among three of his former students—William F. Ranson III, Yuh-Jin “Bill” Chao, and Michael A. Sutton (NAE 2020). From their laboratory experiences, they realized that film or glass-plate methods for storing image data were too complex, time-consuming, and — most importantly — not accurate enough for effective use in engineering. Recognizing these limitations, they sought new ways to improve measurement techniques, eventually leading to the development and worldwide use of digital image correlation (DIC) methods. These optical measurement methods have greatly simplified and improved quantitative deformation measurement across multiple length scales. Their development can be traced directly to the mentorship and freedom to innovate that Chuck provided.

In addition to mentoring students, Chuck was an early member of the Society for Experimental Stress Analysis (SESA), later renamed the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM). He served as president (1966-67) and later as historian. Given his remarkable longevity and the fact that SESA initially held two meetings annually, Chuck will almost certainly remain the only member to have attended 100 meetings. Chuck and his colleagues shaped SEM’s reputation as the “friendly society.” Their generosity, mentorship, and welcoming demeanor instilled a sense of belonging that continues among SEM members today.

Chuck was recognized numerous times by SESA and SEM for his scientific contributions. He received the M.M. Frocht Award in 1969 and the M. Hetényi Award twice, in 1969 and 1972. In 1974, he presented the W.M. Murray Lecture and was subsequently elected a fellow of SEM in 1975 and an honorary member in 1983. Additionally, he was also named a fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics (1976), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1979), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1980). In 1978, he served as president of the Society of Engineering Science.

Beginning in 1976, Chuck served part-time as assistant dean for undergraduate programs in the UIUC College of Engineering. He also held a visiting professorship at the U.S. Military Academy (1979-80).

In 1981, after more than 30 years on the UIUC faculty, Chuck retired and accepted an offer from Knox T. Millsaps to join the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. For the next 12 years, Chuck continued teaching and conducting research in optical measurement methods with graduate students. He retired for the last time in 1993. At Florida, he advised five doctoral students in engineering mechanics — Terry Y. Chen (1985), R. Wallace Fail (1987), James S. Sirkis (1988), Bijan Chitsaz (1992), and Wilhelm K. Schwab (1992). He also advised or co-advised several master’s students in aerospace engineering, engineering science, and engineering mechanics.²

During the 1989-90 academic year, he took a sabbatical leave at the University of South Carolina. In 2006, he received an honorary doctorate from Purdue University, his first alma mater.

Chuck was supported throughout his professional life by his loving wife of 66 years, Lucile Mae “Nikki” Nitsche Taylor (1925-2013). With his characteristic impish grin, Chuck later noted that he was fortunate to be in the United States when World War II ended. “You see, I could get back home before most of our troops could return from overseas. That was how I met my future wife, Nikki. We were married the next year (1946).” Nikki, who acquired her nickname while a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority, graduated with highest honors in 1947 with a bachelor’s degree in child psychology. She and Chuck had two sons, Gary Arthur (b. 1952) and Glenn Charles (b. 1956). Nikki later earned a master’s degree from UIUC. She and her husband were known for graciously hosting many departmental gatherings at their home in Champaign.

Nikki had to be exceptionally patient to put up with Chuck’s favorite pastime — fishing. He was an avid fisherman, traveling from Alaska to Canada and across the United States in search of the best fishing spots. For many years, he visited his former Illinois colleague, Arthur P. Boresi, in Wyoming, where they fished on the Snake River and other prime locations. It was said that “fish trembled when they heard his name,” though no one is quite sure of this claim, as it reportedly came from Chuck himself. After one fishing trip, Chuck told a student about catching an 8-pounder, spreading his arms wide to show its size. Just as he finished his story, a colleague entered the room, chuckled, and said, “Chuck, every time I come in here, the length of the fish you caught gets longer and the weight gets bigger. If you are not careful, the next time you tell the story, you may need to get longer arms.” Smiling with his characteristic impish look, Chuck responded, “It’s the story that matters, not the size of the fish!”

Chuck shared his passion for fishing with many, including Thomas J. Dolan Jr., son of the professor who originally attracted Chuck to UIUC. Dolan Jr. recalled that during spring break, Chuck and Clyde E. Kesler (1922-2011; NAE 1977) “took a couple of TAM students fishing at Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, where the students learned about the gearless fishing reels used by the guides, bass fishing skills, and southern cuisine items, such as hushpuppies.”

During his sabbatical leave at the University of South Carolina, Chuck took full advantage of Lake Murray — one of the nation’s largest freshwater lakes — to maintain his striped bass fishing acumen. With Walter H. “Wally” Peters, a former doctoral student of his good friend and Virginia Tech colleague, C.W. Smith, they were often seen on the lake before sunrise, even in the winter’s cool winds, swapping tall fish tales and admiring the sunrise.

Chuck was also an accomplished handball player, and at UIUC he organized regular touch football and volleyball games for his graduate students and colleagues. During his sabbatical, he became a fixture on the handball courts, teaching Mike Sutton the game—then promptly defeating him soundly. Chuck wryly commented that this was an essential part of his student mentorship.

Chuck died on Dec. 18, 2017, at Gainesville, Florida, at age 93, surrounded by his family.

For many of his students, Chuck was a father figure, quietly and without fanfare helping them succeed. He embodied the spirit of Pay It Forward—the theme of the 2000 movie—a lesson many of his students have strived to emulate throughout their careers. He will always be remembered for his impish smile, twinkle in his eye, and his appreciation of joy, fun, and a great joke—especially if he was the one telling it.

_________________________
¹ Monticello High School was later consolidated with two other local high schools into Twin Lakes Senior High School in Monticello, Indiana.
² Student data kindly provided by Sivaramakrishnan “Bala” Balachandar, University of Florida (2021).