CHITTENDEN

CHITTENDEN 25.10. 1858 Yorkshire NY/USA 09.10. 1917 Seattle WA/USA Hiram Martin Chittenden graduated in 1884 from the US Military Academy, and from the Engineering School of Application in 1887. He was ordered then to Omaha as engineering officer of the Department of Platte, prepared a topographical map of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah two years later, and was from 1889 to 1891 assigned to the improvement of the Missouri River above Sioux City IA. In 1893 he was assigned to duty on the Louisville and Portland Canal bypassing the Falls of the Ohio River near Louisville KY. In 1894 he had charge of the canal survey between Lake Erie and the Ohio River as executive officer, and was promoted to captain in 1895. From 1896 he was secretary of the Missouri River Commission in charge of the improvement of Osage and Gasconade Rivers in Missouri. He served from 1898 as lieutenant-colonel and chief engineer in the Spanish-American War. Chittenden was from 1899 to 1906 in charge of road construction in Yellowstone, being promoted to major in 1904. Until 1916 he was placed in charge of the Lake Washington Canal to connect Puget Sound WA with lakes in and bordering Seattle WA. During these years, he also was appointed chairman of the Federal Commission on Yosemite Park to consider changes of its boundaries, and was engaged in projects to investigate the Sacramento Flood Control. Chittenden retired in 1910 with the rank of brigadier general, following a stroke causing partial paralysis. He continued in 1912 as consultant for flood control to the Spring Valley Water Company, San Francisco CA, reporting also to the Miami Conservancy District on that problem. Chittenden was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE, and the Missouri Historical Society. He published besides papers on technical problems also a notable work on the Yellowstone National Park, and on the American fur trade. Chittenden, H.M. (1895). The Yellowstone National Park. Stewart & Kidd: Cincinnati. Chittenden, H.M. (1903). The history of early steamboat navigation on the Missouri River. Ross & Haines: Minneapolis. Chittenden, H.M. (1918). Detention reservoirs with spillway outlets as an agency in flood control. Trans. ASCE 82: 1473-1540. FitzSimons, N., ed. (1991). Hiram M. Chittenden. A biographical dictionary of American Civil Engineers 2: 21. ASCE: New York. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_M._Chittenden P

CHRISTENSEN N.A. 19.01. 1903 Provo UT/USA 12.04. 1996 Albuquerque NM/USA Nephi Albert Christensen graduated in 1928 with a BS as civil engineer from University of Wisconsin, Madison WI, and with the MS in 1934 and the PhD in 1938 from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA. He was from 1928 to 1933 professor of exact sciences at Ricks College, Rexburg ID, then until 1938 a hydraulic engineer at Caltech, and then until 1948 Dean of Engineering, Colorado State University CSU, Fort Collins CO. In parallel he was there also Director of its Engineering Division. From 1948 until retirement, Christensen was Director of the School of Civil Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca NY. From 1954 he was also a member of the New York State Flood Control Commission, and consultant to the Brookhaven National Laboratory of Atomic Energy Commission, and the Ordnance Office of Research, Durham NC. Christensen was particularly working in engineering education, with a multitude of appointments at American universities. In parallel, he was also interested in hydraulic engineering, as at CSU, where he contributed to the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station. He submitted a discussion to the noteworthy 1943 ASCE paper on drop structures, in which a first attempt was made to standardize these important elements of hydraulic engineering. The water flow entrains air due to jet formation, thereby complicating the flow analysis. These flows were modeled using the similitude of Froude, provided the model sizes were sufficiently large to avoid scale effects due to surface tension and viscosity. This work also includes two-phase flow of water and sediment at the outlet, which was also investigated to avoid scour. This and other papers had a largely increased value due to discussions, a fact that is currently less observed. On leave of absence from 1942 to 1945, Christensen served successively as chief engineer of the Ballistics Research Laboratory, and chief of the Rocket Research Division at the Ordnance Research and Development Center, Aberdeen MD. Alger, P.L., Christensen, N.A., Olmsted, S.P. (1965). Ethical problems in engineering. Wiley: New York. Anonymous (1948). Nephi Albert Christensen. Civil Engineering 18(9): 612. P Anonymous (1959). Christensen, N.A. Who’s who in engineering 8: 422. Lewis: New York. Anonymous (1963). Dr. N.A. Christensen. Civil Engineering 33(4): 72. P Christensen, N.A., Gunder, D. (1943). Discussion of Hydraulic design of drop structures for gully control. Trans. ASCE 108: 927-930.