Qian Lingxi

Qian Lingxi (; 26 July 1916 – 20 April 2009), also known as Tsien Ling-hi, was a Chinese civil engineer and physicist. An authority on engineering structural mechanics and computational mechanics, he served as president of the Dalian University of Technology (DUT) and was a founding member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). DUT's Lingxi Library, opened in 2009, is named after him.

Early life and education On 26 July 1916, Qian was born in the town of Hongsheng (, now Hongshan Subdistrict) outside the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu, China. His father, Qian Bogui , was the teacher of the celebrated historian Qian Mu (Ch'ien Mu), and his older brother Qian Linzhao (1906–1999) was also a distinguished physicist and a founding member of the CAS.

After obtaining his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Institut Technique Franc-Chinois de Shanghai (now part of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology) in 1936, he won a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship to study at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium. He received the degree of from the university in July 1938. In 1955, he became one of the founding members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

During the Cultural Revolution, top experts including Qian Lingxi and Huang Xuhua were denounced as "reactionary academic authorities" and dismissed from their posts. When China's nuclear submarine project needed Qian's help to analyze its structural designs, its leader Chen Youming had to appeal directly to Premier Zhou Enlai to make him available to the strategic program.

Contributions

Research Qian devoted himself to research in engineering structural mechanics. He made important contributions in variation principles to limit analysis, computational mechanics and structural optimization.

In the early 1960s, Qian and his student Zhong Wanxie published two papers in Science in China and Acta Mechanica Sinica, on the "general variational theory of limit analysis and plasticity". Their research was used in submarine design and was awarded national prizes.

Major publications Qian Lingxi, , China Science Book and Instrument Company, Shanghai, 1951.

Qian Lingxi, , China Science Book Instrument Company, Shanghai, 1952.

Б. Н. Жемочкин, , Translated by Qian Lingxi. Transportation Ministry of Inland Waterway Technology Research Group, 1953.

Э. Ф. Gorhuangwei, Т. В. Ender. , Translated by Qian Lingxi and Gao Guofan. People's Communications Press, Beijing, 1955.

(Based on the lecture notes prepared by Qian Lingxi) Compiled by the General Administration of Navigation Engineering, Ministry of Communications of the People's Republic of China, Port Building, Vol 1, , People's Communications Publishing House, Beijing, 1955.

Н. Х. Arugiu Nieyang, , Translated by Wu Ruifeng, Lu Kuangzhou, Fang Xiaoshu, Zhao Deyong, Qian Lingxi, etc., Beijing Science Press, Beijing, 1961.

Qian Lingxi and Zhong Wanxie, , The Science and Technology Commission of the Republic of China, Beijing, 1964.

Qian Lingxi, editor in chief, , Guanghua Publishing House, Beijing, 1979.

Qian Lingxi, (including drawings and errata), Printed by Dalian Institute of Technology, Dalian, 1981.

Qian Lingxi, editor in chief, , Peking University Press, Beijing, 1981.

W. J. Krefeld and W. G. Bowman, , Translated by Qian Lingxi, Science Press, Beijing, 1982.

Qian Lingxi, , China Academic Press, Beijing, 1982.

Prepared by the Steel Bridge Design Group of the Engineering Mechanics Department of Dalian Institute of Technology, reviewed and updated by Qian Lingxi, , People's Communications Press, Beijing, 1982.

Qian Lingxi, , Water Conservancy and Electric Power Press, Beijing, 1983.

Qian Lingxi, , Science Press, Beijing, 2011.

Qian Lingxi, , Science Press, Beijing, 2011.

Death and legacy Qian died on 20 April 2009 in Dalian, at the age of 92.