Yale Bulletin and Calendar

July 21, 2000

Volume 28, Number 35

E. Turan Onat

E. Turan Onat, 75, specialist
in engineering materials, dies

A memorial service will be held in the fall for E. Turan Onat, professor of mechanical engineering and a former master of Calhoun College, who died in New Haven on July 4. He was 75.

A native of Turkey, Professor Onat received his engineering diploma in 1948 and a doctor of science degree in 1951, both from Technical University of Istanbul.

He was a research fellow at the Paris Academy 1949-1950 and held research positions at Brown University from 1951 to 1954. Professor Onat served as a lieutenant in the Turkish Army Ordnance Corps and was attached to the scientific advisory board of the Turkish general staff from 1954 to 1955.

From 1957 to 1965, Onat taught engineering at Brown University. He also held a Guggenheim Fellowship at Cambridge University and at the Technical University of Istanbul in 1963-1964.

Professor Onat joined the Yale engineering faculty in 1965. He served as master of Calhoun College from 1990 to 1995.

Best known for his studies of viscoelasticity and plasticity in solid substances such as steel and polymers, his research included investigations into fractures in engineering materials and the plasticity of metals at finite strain.

He received the 1967 scientific award of The Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Foundation and the 1989 senior scientist award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

During his time at Yale, Professor Onat was a visiting professor at Oxford University; the University of Illinois at Urbana; the University of Rio Grande du Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil; the Institut de Mécanique at the Université de Grenoble, France; Tianjin University in the People's Republic of China; and Ruhr Universität in Bochum, Germany.

Professor Onat was associate editor of Mathematical Review in 1962; managing editor of the Quarterly of Applied Mechanics in 1955-1956; and on the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Plasticity.

He is survived by his wife, Etta Onat, formerly associate dean for humanities in the Yale Graduate School; a son, Yasar Onat of New Haven; a granddaughter, Rebecca Onat of Guilford; a sister, Meral Aras, and a brother, Dogan Onat, both of Istanbul, Turkey.

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