Aircraft have always presented the
structural engineer with some of the most challenging of
problems.
The constraints
of minimum weight and maximum performance and safety led
engineers by the 1940s to develop strong, super-light-weight
alloys, and to refine methods of structural analysis. But with
the advent of jet aircraft, new technologies were needed. The
much higher velocities of the jet meant that new wing designs
and better materials had to be developed. And the old methods
of calculating structural stresses no longer were
adequate.
During the early 1950s, the Boeing Company approached UW engineering professor Harold C. Martin about a solution to the structural analysis problem. In response to that request, work by Martin and colleagues at the University contributed significantly to the development of an analysis technique now known as the finite element method. Employed almost universally today in industry and academia, the finite element method has become one of the main computing tools of scientists and engineers and a standard element of any engineering curriculum. It is used to analyze complex structures, and to solve problems in fluid mechanics and heat transfer.
Martin's blend of academic and industrial experience made him ideally suited to tackle the problem. He had worked for both the Republican Aircraft Company and the Boeing Company; he had completed a doctoral degree at California Institute of Technology and had teaching experience at Princeton. Martin served on the faculty of the UW Department of Astronautics and Aeronautics from 1948 to 1970.
The basic scheme of the finite element method is to substitute a simplified problem for a complex one. An odd-shaped wing panel of a high-speed aircraft can be represented as an assemblage of tiny panels of triangular shape. Taking advantage of the computational power of modern computers and some advanced techniques of matrix mathematics, the large number of small triangular elements can be used to solve complex problems that otherwise would be intractable for the complete structure.
After the publication of his seminal paper in 1956 about the
finite element method,
Martin continued
work in the field, publishing two books on the 
