Details

Institution of Plant Engineers Honorary Member medal, 1969

UK0108 OPC/3/014/02

1969

1 Medal

Dr H Peter Jost (1921 -2016), who died aged 95, coined the term “tribology” (from the Greek word “tribo” – I rub) to describe the science of friction, wear, and lubrication – giving birth to a new engineering discipline. In 1966 Jost published a report, commissioned by the government, which showed, for the first time, that the problems of lubrication in engineering were mainly problems of design. Their solutions, Jost argued, needed a range of skills from scientific disciplines other than mechanical engineering – including chemistry and materials science, solid body mechanics and physics. By applying tribology to machine design, Jost and his team calculated that British industry could save £500 million a year as a result of fewer breakdowns causing lost production; lower energy consumption; reduced maintenance costs; and longer machine life. The Jost report led to the setting up of several national tribology centres in Britain, though initially it was Britain’s competitors who took the ball and ran with it. By the late 1980s Britain was lagging behind the US, Germany and Japan. As recently as 2015 a press release from five learned societies announcing the creation of a UK Tribology Network to promote best practice observed that while Britain has a strong academic and industrial tribology base, “due to the fragmentation of activity within the UK the impact on reducing the very high cost (circa 1.4 per cent of GDP) of uncontrolled friction, lubrication, surface selection and wear-control within industry has been limited.” Hans Peter Jost was born on January 25 1921 and educated at Liverpool Technical College and Manchester College of Technology. He began his career as an apprentice at Associated Metal Works, Glasgow, and Napier and Sons in Liverpool, winning the Sir John Larking Medal for a paper on Measurement of Surface Finish. By the age of 29 Jost had become general manager of international lubricants company Trier Bros, for whom he developed an innovative steam machinery lubrication method which saved energy and water by preventing boiler tubes scaling up. By 1960 he had become lubrication consultant to Richard Thomas and Baldwins. Jost went on to serve as a director and chairman of several technology and engineering companies including the solid lubricants company K S Paul, and Engineering & General Equipment. He served on numerous industry councils, and until his death was president of the International Tribology Council and a life member of the council of the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee. He was an honorary fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and of the Institute of Materials. Appointed CBE in 1969, Jost was honoured by the heads of state of France, Germany, Poland, Austria and Japan, and in 1992 became the first honorary foreign member of the Russia Academy of Engineering. He held two honorary professorships and 11 honorary doctorates including, in January 2000, the first Millennium honorary science doctorate. In 2009 he co-launched the concept of Green Tribology, paving the way for the first Green Tribology World Congress. He married, in 1948, Margaret Kadesh, who survived him with two daughters. Peter Jost, born January 25 1921, died June 7 2016. [Daily Telegraph obituary 15 JUne 2016]

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