Maurice Anthony Biot (May 25, 1905 – September 12, 1985) was a Belgian-American applied physicist. He made contributions in thermodynamics, aeronautics, geophysics, earthquake engineering, and electromagnetism. Particularly, he was accredited as the founder of the theory of poroelasticity. Born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

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, Biot studied at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium where he received a bachelor's degrees in philosophy (1927), mining engineering (1929) and electrical engineering (1930), and Doctor of Science in 1931. He obtained his Ph.D. in Aeronautical Science from the California Institute of Technology in 1932 under Theodore von Kármán. In 1930s and 1940s Biot worked at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, the Catholic University of Leuven,

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and Brown University, and later for a number of companies and government agencies, including

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during the Space Program in the 1960s. After 1969 Biot became a private consultant for various companies and agencies, and particularly for

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Research and Development. Biot's early work with von Kármán and during the World War II working for the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics led to the development of the three-dimensional theory of aircraft flutter. During the period between 1932 and 1942, he conceived and then fully developed the response spectrum method (RSM) for earthquake engineering. For irreversible thermodynamics, Biot utilized the variational approach and was the first to introduce the dissipation function and the minimum dissipation principle to account for the dissipation phenomenon, which led to the development of thermoelasticity,

heat In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...

transfer, viscoelasticity, and thermorheology. Biot's interest in the non-linear effects of initial stress and the inelastic behavior of solids led to his mathematical theory of folding of stratified rocks. In the period between 1935 and 1962 Biot published a number of scientific papers that lay the foundations of the theory of poroelasticity (now known as Biot theory), which describes the mechanical behaviour of fluid-saturated porous media. Biot is a recipient of the Timoshenko Medal (1962)1962 Timoshenko Medal Acceptance Speech by Maurice A. Biot.
/ref> and the von Kármán Medal (1967). He was an Honorary Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, a member of the US National Academy of Engineering 7, 46 and was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

. He died in his Brussels apartment aged 80. To honor Biot's pioneering contributions, a Maurice A. Biot Medal was established by the Engineering Mechanics Institute of American Society of Civil Engineers. A Biot Conference on Poromechanics was established and was held at Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium (1998), Universite Joseph Fourier, France (2002), University of Oklahoma, USA (2005), Columbia University, USA (2009), and Technical University of Vienna, Austria (2013).

References

External links

Poronet - PoroMechanics Internet Resources Network
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Biot, Maurice Anthony 1905 births 1985 deaths Catholic University of Leuven (1834–1968) alumni Belgian emigrants to the United States 20th-century Belgian engineers Brown University faculty California Institute of Technology alumni Columbia University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard University staff Scientists from Antwerp Fellows of the Acoustical Society of America