Austin Whillier was born in Vrede in the Orange Free State, South Africa in 1927; grew up in Germiston, and matriculated at the Johannesburg Technical High and Trade School. The University of the Witwatersrand presented him with a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering cum laude in 1947. He also won the Bernard Price Prize as top student in his class and he was active in student affairs. He was 6 feet tall and weighed 190 pounds and loved playing rugby and ice hockey.

After a short period with the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, during which he was involved in unsteady-state heat transfer in buildings, Austin left to take up a Scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Here he studied under Solar Pioneer Professor Hoyt Hottel. Together they developed the famous ‘Hottel-Whillier Formula’, the basis of solar calculations.

This period at M.I.T. saw the attaining of a Doctor of Science in mechanical engineering, as well as the Karl Taylor-Compton prize for 1954 for contributing ‘most to university life’. His doctoral thesis “ Solar Energy Collection and it’s Utilization for House Heating”, was so enlightened and so sound that it is still considered to be relevant today . So much so, that it was published in full book form 25 years later. It included the now famous Hottel-Whillier Equation for solar heaters.

In the 760 page book “Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes” there appears on page 224 the statement “This (the Hottel-Whillier Equation) is the most important equation in (our) book.” His association with M.I.T. continued for a further year and a half after he obtained his doctorate, in the capacities of lecturer and research associate. These teaching activities provided the roots for Austin Whillier’s outstanding ability as a teacher. Many a class at many a level has benefited from his patience and understanding in the lecture theatre. This generous spirit was one of his great hallmarks and impressed everyone who met or knew him.

Leaving M.I.T. at the beginning of 1955 Austin rejoined the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, where he served, first, as head of the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Division and, subsequently, as the first head of the Hydromechanics Division. In mid 1961, the overseas academic world called once again, and Austin took up an appointment as Associate Professor at McGill University in Canada. Here he taught full courses on solar and wind energy utilization commencing in 1962, 1963 and 1964 to graduate students at University. This is considered to be the first time that any full course on energy utilization was taught anywhere in the world. Austin also established the solar and wind energy experimental station located in Barbados, West Indies for the Brace Research Institute during this time.

While in North America he met and married Mary, his Canadian born wife. Mary was his very best asset and great love throughout his busy and productive life, and by whom he had three fine children, Muffy, John and Stephen. His return to South Africa in early 1965 brought him back to the academic world as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. Formal involvement with the University in this capacity was short, lasting only for that year. Subsequent to his leaving to join the staff of the Research Organisation of the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, the University classes continued to benefit from Austin’s services as a lecturer and external examiner.

In the course of his sixteen years with the Chamber of Mines, Austin rose to be Director of the Research Laboratories, and throughout brought his brilliant analytical mind to bear on the problems encountered in the cooling of deep, and inevitably hot, mines. Notwithstanding the circulation of large quantities of air (typically 10 tons per ton of broken rock), and the use of large refrigeration plants for cooling the air at strategic intervals in the distant work places, temperatures in mines greater than 1 500 m in depth, can exceed 32 deg C during the summer months. (These are wet-bulb temperatures; in mines the air is always near to saturation so the dry-bulb temperature has little significance.)

Men working hard generate metabolic heat at a rate of 400 to 500 watts, and this heat has to be removed by the ventilation air, primarily by evaporation of sweat from the skin. The temperature of the wet skin is typically 35 deg C. Removal of the metabolic heat at the rate of 400 to 500 watts requires that the wet-bulb temperature of the air should be lower than 27 deg C or 28 deg C (depending on air speed), otherwise the men are unable to continue working hard without a dangerous rise in body temperature taking place. Furthermore, such men require to be acclimatized before they can work hard in safety at temperatures above these values. With increasing wet-bulb temperatures there is a progressive decline in productivity and in morale, as well as an increase in accident rates caused by decreasing alertness of the men.

Conditions below 27 deg C wet-bulb are considered to be adequately cool, whereas if temperatures are allowed to rise above 32 deg C wet-bulb, conditions can become decidedly unpleasant and potentially dangerous. In 1975 temperatures were reduced in deep mine stopes from 32 to less than 28 deg C. Mines could now become more productive and go deeper. Austin’s new method of cooling mines has proved so successful that it has been adopted world wide, permanently saving enormous costs. It is based on water-cooling instead of air-cooling. He described to the author how he noticed, on entering a mine, the abundant service water used to drive underground machinery and equipment, dust control, and huge and numerous air conditioning plants etc. It struck him that it might be more efficient to cool this water rather than the air. And so it turned out to be! A valuable contribution to the world! A fitting monument to Austin Whillier.

In recognition of this achievement, Austin was awarded the Gold Medal of the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies in 1977. Other important awards and honours that came to him, include the Silver medal of the South African Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1968 and the Gold medal of the Mine Ventilation Society of South Africa in 1973. Close on a hundred papers appeared in the technical press, bearing the name of Austin Whillier either as author or co-author, and covering a very wide range of subjects. These included the whip on hoist cables, thermometric methods of testing high-head pumps, fire protection, the prediction of underground temperature rise and the design and performance of cooling towers.

Austin Whillier’s contributions to progress in technical and scientific spheres have not been limited to those that arose in his normal line of duty. His years of hard work for various technical and scientific bodies bear witness to this. He was Past-President of the:-

• Mine Ventilation Society of South Africa
• South African Institution of Mechanical Engineers
• Associated Scientific and Technical Societies of South Africa
• Solar Energy Society of Southern Africa.

In 1983 he was posthumously awarded the Brigadier Stokes Memorial Award for the very highest achievement in the South African mining and metallurgy industry.

He helped initiate the Solar Energy Society of Southern Africa (SESSA) when he accepted an invitation to meet the author in Natal, South Africa in 1974. He accepted the role of Honorary President of SESSA and his professional approach to setting up this Section of ISES was outstanding. Several Presidents of ISES in the 1970’s told the author that the majority of the research in the USA was based on Whillier’s work of the early1950’s.

“His genius was utterly practical. He was never seduced by the uselessness of pure theory. Where others saw confusion he looked for simplicity. He could slice through the complexities of engineering problems in a way which left his audience gasping with admiration; and deliver a lecture with no more notes than could be written on a bus ticket. The greatest joy of my life is the pleasant and personal cooperation of all my colleagues and acquaintances outside (and inside) the industry who are involved in my work.”

Those who were privileged to have known him, for he was highly respected as a person, a teacher, a scientist and an engineer, remember Dr. Austin Whillier with great affection. He left the indelible stamp of his remarkable personality on all who knew him. Dr. Whillier was also posthumously elected to the Solar Hall of Fame in Washington in 1982. The untimely passing of Austin Whillier in 1981 was indeed a loss that has been felt throughout the scientific, engineering and solar worlds.