Emergent laws in structural vibration with application to the design of engineering systems

Professor Robin Langley

G.I. Taylor Lecture

• 2 February 2026, 18:00 – 19:00
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre G.I. Taylor Lecture

Upcoming event Booking Recommended In-person Lecture Lent Term G.I. Taylor Lecture

• Event cost: Free
• Disabled access?: Yes
• Booking required: No

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Overview

One of the many outstanding achievements of G I Taylor was the discovery of relatively simple statistical laws that apply to highly complex turbulent flows.  The emergence of simple laws from complexity is well known in other branches of physics, for example the emergence of the laws of heat conduction from molecular dynamics.  Complexity can also arise at large scales, and the structural vibration of an aircraft or a car can be a surprisingly difficult phenomenon to analyse, partly because millions of degrees of freedom may be involved, and partly because the vibration can be extremely sensitive to small changes or imperfections in the system. In this talk it is shown that the prediction of vibration levels can be much simplified by the derivation and exploitation of emergent laws, analogous to some extent to the heat conduction equations, but with an added statistical aspect, as in turbulent flow. The emergent laws are discussed and their application to the design of aerospace, marine, and automotive structures is described.  As an aside it will be shown that the same emergent theory can be applied to a range of problems involving electromagnetic fields. 

Biography

Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

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G.I. Taylor Lecture

Geoffrey Ingram Taylor (1886-1975) was a polymath, one of the most notable scientists of the twentieth century, occupying a leading place in applied, science, classical physics and engineering science. His most notable contributions have been in the fields of mechanics of fluids and solids, with application to meteorology, oceanography, aeronautics, metal physics, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering. He was a great experimentalist, with well-honed practical skills (whilst a schoolboy GI build a sailing boat 13.5 feet long in his bedroom (which was 14 feet long), doing it all himself apart from some help from his mother in making the sails, and sailed it alone from Hammersmith to Sheerness and back, sleeping on board with one leg either side of the centreboard case.

He was interested in science from an early age, and at the age of 11 attended the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures from Sir Oliver Lodge on ‘The principles of the electric telegraph’. These made a deep impression on him and he is quoted as saying that ‘from that time I knew I wanted to be a scientist’. Taking inspiration from the practical demonstrations in the lectures, he built his own Wimshurst machine and used it to generate low-energy X-rays  (which had just been discovered).

GI returned to Cambridge as a lecturer in mathematics; he was not much interested in teaching, but the award of a Royal Society Research Professorship in 1923 enabled him to move to a research position at the Cavendish. He remained a Fellow of Trinity all his life.  

“I think that if I were to start again I should still try to be an applied mathematician, because the number of amusing activities to which mathematics can lead on is so great” (1952).

Source: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsbm.1976.0021

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