Paul Germain (∗August 28, 1920, in Saint-Malo, France; †February 26, 2009, in Châtillon, France) was a scientist in aerodynamics and continuum mechanics. He made his first important contributions in the field of hypersonic and transonic flows. He used asymptotic methods to study the structure of shock waves. His application of the method of virtual powers opened the way to the rational derivation of higher-order gradient theories in Continuum Mechanics. He is also known for his personal views on continuum thermodynamics.
Paul Germain (Image courtesy: Paul Germain’s family)
Family and Education
Paul Germain was born in Saint-Malo (France), a seaside city in Brittany not far from Mont-Saint-Michel. He spent his childhood in Rennes, the capital of Brittany. His father, a chemist and high school teacher most appreciated by his students, was an educated person. Unfortunately he had been gassed during World War I, and he passed away when Paul was only 9 years old. This premature death was a...
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Germain P (1949) La théorie générale des mouvements coniques et ses applications à l’aérodynamique supersonique. Ph.D thesis, Sorbonne University, Paris
Germain P (1954) New applications of Tricomi solutions to transonic flow. In: Proceedings of the 2nd US national congress of applied mechanics, Ann Arbor, pp 659–666
Germain P (1955) The general theory of conical motions with applications to supersonic aerodynamics. Technical Report 1554, NACA, English translation of his thesis
Germain P (1956) An expression for the Green’s function for a particular Tricomi problem. Quart Appl Math 14:113–123
Germain P (1962) Mécanique des Milieux Continus. Masson, Paris
Germain P (1972) Shock waves: jump relations and structure. In: Yih CS (ed) Advances in applied mechanics, vol 11. Academic Press, New York, pp 132–194
Germain P (1973a) Cours de Mécanique des Milieux Continus. Tome I: Théorie générale. Masson, Paris
Germain P (1973b) La méthode des puissances virtuelles en mécanique des milieux continus. Première partie: théorie du second gradient. J de Mécanique 12:235–274
Germain P (1973c) The method of virtual power in continuum mechanics. Part 2: microstructure. SIAM J Appl Math 25:556–575
Germain P, Guiraud JP (1964) Conditions de choc et structure des ondes de choc dans un écoulement non stationnaire de fluide dissipatif. J Math Pures Appl 45:313–358
Germain P, Nguyen QS, Suquet P (1983) Continuum thermodynamics. J Appl Mech 50:1010–1020
Noll W (1997) The role of the professor. Carnegie-Mellon University. http://www.math.cmu.edu/~wn0g/RP.pdf
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Suquet, P. (2019). Germain, Paul. In: Altenbach, H., Öchsner, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Continuum Mechanics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53605-6_309-1
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