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1996: Professor Robert William Ernest Shannon
Professor Robert William Ernest Shannon (1937-2011)
111th President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Shannon was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1937.
He was educated at Belfast College of Technology and The Queen’s University of Belfast, where he gained a BSc (Hons) in Aeronautical Engineering and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering.
He began his career as a Laboratory Technician with James Mackie & Sons Ltd., responsible for product testing in the Plastics Division. In 1956, he undertook an aircraft apprenticeship with Short Brothers. After gaining his degree, he also lectured in aeronautical engineering at Queen’s University.
It was a Queen’s that Shannon met Professor Bernard Crossland, who persuaded him to become a research fellow in mechanical engineering, working on the fracture of ultra-high pressure vehicles, then used for making polythene. He received a PhD for this work, and as a result was recruited by British Gas in 1970.
At this time, there had been some massive gas pipeline ruptures, particularly in the US, with fractures running at speeds up to 2000m/sec and up to 16km in length. Shannon developed standards for the design, operation and repair of high-pressure pipelines, and went on to lead the 350-strong team that developed British Gas’s world-beating intelligent ‘pig’ system for investigating pipelines. This received the Queen’s awards for both technology and exports and led to Shannon and his team winning the MacRobert Award for engineering excellence, one of the engineering profession’s highest honours. He was President of the Institution of Gas Engineers in 1994.
Shannon retired from British Gas in 1995 and subsequently worked as a Consultant and a Professorial Fellow at Queen’s University, Belfast.
He was awarded the CBE in 2001 for services to economic development.
Shannon died in 2011.
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