Knapp, Robert T.

Biography

Robert Talbot Knapp was born January 5, 1899, in Loveland, Colorado. He received his secondary education in Los Angeles public schools and studied for three and one-half years (fall 1916 through fall 1919) at Throop College of Technology in Pasadena, forerunner of the California Institute of Technology. Knapp continued his studies in mechanical engineering at MIT in the spring semester of 1920, and he received his bachelor of science degree from MIT in the same year. Knapp returned to Caltech in 1922 as an instructor. He subsequently earned his PhD there in 1929 and became a full professor in 1951.

Knapp became widely known for his work in hydrodynamics. At Caltech he designed and directed the Hydrodynamics Laboratory, colloquially known as the pump lab, where he conducted significant studies on hydraulic machinery, sedimentation, and high-velocity open-channel flow. He consulted for the Los Angeles Flood Control District, the Metropolitan Water District, and for the US Soil Conservation Service and the US Bureau of Reclamation on the Grand Coulee irrigation project. After World War II he built and operated a hydraulic structures laboratory in Azusa, east of Pasadena, for the study of harbor problems.

Knapp's investigations covered hydrodynamic problems of hydraulic turbines and centrifugal pumps; wave and wave surge problems of beaches and harbors; the mechanics of cavitation and cavitation damage; and problems of soil erosion, drainage and irrigation. During World War II he served as consultant to the US Army on underwater ballistics. Knapp received the Melville Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 1955 for his paper "Recent Investigations on the Mechanics of Cavitation and Cavitation Damage." At the time of his death, Knapp was working on a book on cavitation, which was subsequently completed by his coauthors, James W. Daily and Frederick G. Hammitt ( Cavitation, 1970), and which has become a standard text. In 1959 ASME established the Robert T. Knapp Award for outstanding work in the field of fluid mechanics.

Robert Knapp married Pearl Gilliland in Los Angeles in 1925. He died suddenly in Pasadena on November 7, 1957.

From the guide to the Robert T. Knapp papers, 1860-1989, (California Institute of Technology. Caltech Archives)