Design and analysis
24 Nov 03
Death of TY Lin
The world-renowned structural engineer Tung-Yen Lin has died, aged 91. He was the founder TY Lin International and of San Francisco-based Lin Tung-Yen China, and was a professor emeritus of civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His pioneering work in prestressed concrete had a profound influence on modern structural design.
He died at his home in California after a fall resulting from a mild heart attack. He had remained active throughout his life, having met with former students and worked at his San Francisco office the week before his death.
"Lin's legacy is international," said Karl Pister, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering and dean emeritus of the College of Engineering. "Almost every continent you go to there will be structures with TY Lin's mark on them. He was a one-of-a-kind person of incredible creative vision in structural design."
Lin was raised in Beijing. After graduating in 1931 he went to the US to study for a master's degree at Berkeley before returning to China. By the age of 25 he was chief bridge engineer of the Yunnan-Chongqing Railway where he oversaw the survey, design and construction of more than 1,000 bridges in mountainous regions.
He joined UC Berkeley's faculty in 1946 where he began his groundbreaking research in prestressed concrete, dramatically simplifying the design process for using the material and doing much to promote its use.
In 1954, he founded the firm TY Lin & Associates - later renamed to TY Lin International - to help move prestressed concrete from the realm of research into real-world applications. Lin left the company in 1992 and went on to found San Francisco-based Lin Tung-Yen China, which focuses on engineering projects in China. Lin's son-in-law, Robert Yee, is president of that company. Yee said that Lin took particular pride in the role he played in influencing the redevelopment of Pudong, an island off the coast of Shanghai that had been full of old factories and farmland. There are now 10 bridges or tunnels between Shanghai and Pudong, and six more are planned.
One of the last projects Lin worked on was the Ling-Tie Bridge in Nanning, China. Lin helped design the asymmetrical arched bridge on a curve, which is due for completion by the end of 2004.
