Charles Leopold Willibald Trinks (10 December 1874 in Berlin – 24 May 1966 in Tucson, Arizona, United States) was a German scientist who emigrated to Pennsylvania soon after getting his degree from the Berlin institute of technology. Working as an engineer in different US companies he became the world authority in industrial furnaces. At the Carnegie Institute of Technology he organized the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Life
Willibald Trinks was born 1874 in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia. He got his tertiary education at Königliche Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg. Then after working in Germany for two years he emigrated to Pennsylvania in the United States. He had 3 marriages: Maud Alice Moore, whom he married in 1902 in Allegheny County. After her death he married her sister Edith Moore. In 1938 he married Ruth Eudora Waxham in Pittsburgh. His two sons died early: Charles Henry Gisbert Trinks (1903 - 1914), and Harold A. Trinks (1911 - 1929). Willibald Trinks died in 1966.
Career
W. Trinks graduated with distinction from the Charlottenburg institute of technology in 1897. Before his emigration to the US he worked as a mechanical engineer in Germany for two years.
In the United States he was engineer at William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Company Philadelphia, Southwark Foundry and Machine Company in Philadelphia, then Chief Engineer at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Professor Trinks was one of the first appointments of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he headed the Department of Mechanical Engineering for 38 years.
Scientific publications
Shaft Governors (1918), D. van Nostrand Company, New York
Governors and the Governing of Prime Movers (1919), D. van Nostrand Company, New York Industrial Furnaces: Volume 1 (1923), John Wiley & Sons, New York Industrial Furnaces: Volume 2 (1925), John Wiley & Sons, New York Roll Pass Design Volume 1 (1933), Penton Publishing Company, Cleveland, Ohio Roll Pass Design Volume 2 (1934), Penton Publishing Company, Cleveland, Ohio
Awards
Percy Nicholls Award (1958)