Alumni news

John ‘Mike’ Owen, Emeritus Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Bath, died on 25 December 2021, aged 83, from the type of lung cancer caused by asbestos.

Born in South London, he started a seagoing, student apprenticeship in marine engineering at the age of 16 and followed this by service with the Esso company on steam turbine tankers. Mike soon realised he was more academically inclined and entered King’s College, Newcastle, in 1961 to read Mechanical Engineering.

King’s College was at that time the science campus of the federal University of Durham, becoming the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1963. In 1965, after taking the more difficult mathematical options, Mike graduated with Class 1 honours, taking a Durham degree.

In 1965, he was appointed research engineer in fluid machinery in Vancouver. But a year later he was invited to join Fred Bayley’s research team at the newly-established University of Sussex to work on a Rolls-Royce funded project on the fluid mechanics of rotating discs. This subject occupied the rest of his life, earning him a Doctor of Philosophy in 1969 and later a Doctor of Science. He was described by Rolls-Royce as an intellectual heavyweight and was appointed Research Fellow, Lecturer and Reader in quick succession.

Over his 20 years at Sussex, he supervised many research students, grants and contracts, and became the Director of the Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Research Centre, which he and Fred Bayley founded with a grant from the then Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC, later becoming EPSRC).

His research work was funded by SERC, the Ministry of Defence, and several international gas turbine companies. Mike took the Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Bath in 1989.

During his time at Sussex and Bath, Mike produced over a hundred high-quality journal and conference papers, and several books, two of which, with the late Ruth Rogers, entitled ‘Flow and Heat Transfer in Rotating Disc Systems’ established him as a world authority on rotating flows.

He continued this experimental and theoretical work at Bath, developing a world-renowned centre for rotating flows and researching the three key areas for rotating flows in jet engines: pre-swirl, ingress and buoyancy. He held several academic posts at Bath, including Head of School as it transitioned to a Department within the faculty of Engineering.

Once asked when he was going to retire, he replied ‘never’ and indeed he was working on two scientific papers right up to his last few days. Before becoming ill, he enjoyed cycling up and down the hills around Bath and walking miles at weekends. He had a real sense of humour and, in common with most engineers, he enjoyed jokes with an unexpected twist.

Mike was well read and often brightened engineering design meetings with a literary quotation. He was an excellent mentor, generously giving his time to PhD students and junior academics. He was happily married for 57 years and is survived by his wife Doreen, two daughters and seven grandchildren.

Author: Alan Turner, Emeritus Professor (Engineering and Design)

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