Bowden, Frank Philip (1903–1968)

Australian physicist and chemist who worked mainly in Britain.

He studied friction, lubricants, and surface erosion. For example, he realized that the thin layer of water between a ski or an ice skate and the snow or ice is produced not by pressure due to the weight on them but by friction-induced heat caused by irregularities in the sliding surfaces.

Bowden was born in Hobart, Tasmania, and studied at the University of Tasmania. In 1927 he went to Cambridge University, England, where he remained except during World War II. In 1939 he headed a lubricants and bearings section at Melbourne University, and when the war ended he set up a similar research group at Cambridge. There, he was director of the laboratory for physics and chemistry of solids 1946–65, and a chair in surface physics was created for him 1966.

Bowden began to publish papers on friction 1931, and demonstrated that sliding produces friction over only a small fraction of the total area of the surface, but can produce exceedingly high temperatures and even induce melting in hot spots. An implication of this work is that a lubricant might be decomposed by heat at exactly the place where it is most needed.

His war research covered a broad range of areas of military significance: machine and tool lubricants, flame-throwing fuels, the accurate measurement of shell velocities for gun calibration, and the casting of aircraft bearings.