Dartmouth Engineer

By Ellen Frye

Horst Richter first came to Thayer School from his native Germany as a visiting researcher in 1972, then joined the faculty in 1975. During his 33 years of teaching, he chaired the department, initiated exchange programs with the University of Aachen and Bundeswehr University in Hamburg, Germany, and created one of Thayer School’s first courses for non-engineers, ENGS 2: The Technology of Sailing. He retires at the end of spring term.

Professor Horst Richter. Photograph by Douglas Fraser

How does it feel to be retiring?

It’s bittersweet. As one would say in German, I have “one smiling and one teary eye.” I will have more time to travel with my wife and spend time with the children and grandchildren. But Thayer School is such a wonderful place that it is hard to leave.

Will you still do any engineering?

I still want to do a little research. There is still some work to be done in thermal spraying. I think it is great that Thayer School is starting a new initiative on energy, and I would like to be involved in some way, maybe only as an observer or have maybe half a foot in the door.

What drove your research interests at Thayer?

The first research I was involved in was nuclear reactors with Graham Wallis. We worked with emergency core cooling systems. I had the largest lab Thayer School ever had — next to the Dartmouth power plant. We had a pressure vessel that we used to test the emergency cooling nozzles of reactors. And we needed a lot of steam from the power plant. We had fun. Later I worked on improving power plant efficiencies. Then I got more interested in computational fluid dynamics. One thing about Thayer School is that you can do the research you want to do. You are not constrained by a sign on the office that says “Energy.” If there is research worth doing, you can do it.

How did you get involved in doing computational fluid dynamics for America’s Cup yachts?

After the U.S. lost the America’s Cup in 1995 I met with a good friend, the preeminent American yacht designer Olin Stephens. He had designed at least five America’s Cup boats that all won. He lives in Hanover, so we meet frequently and talk about boats. At the time, we were contemplating why we lost the Cup. He thought that more attention should have been paid to the performance of sails. I mentioned that we could use computational fluid dynamics to evaluate the optimum sail shape. So we approached Young America, one of the new syndicates for the America’s Cup 2000. We wrote a proposal, and they provided us with money to study sails. I had two grad students working with me. I learned a lot and it was exciting.

Are you still involved with the America’s Cup?

The America’s Cup is underway in Valencia, Spain, right now. We did some work for the American boat. As soon as the Cup is over, a new design cycle will start, and I hope to get involved again. On other sailing issues, I am working with the Sailing Yacht Research Foundation to try to improve handicap rules. Big boats sail against small boats. How do you handicap them? The critical issue is the performance of sails under various wind conditions. Further, I would like to publish a paper on computational fluid dynamics for sails in a more scientific sailing journal — and show some good graphics about the air flow around sails.

As you look back on your career, what advice would you give students who are starting theirs?

My students ask me: What should I do? Where should I go? I tell them, get a job where you can have fun because if you don’t have fun, you waste your life. It’s not the money that makes you happy, it’s the fun you have in your work, which will reflect on your whole life, the “pursuit of happiness.”

For more photos of professors past and present, visit our Faculty Flickr page.

LESS IS MORE: Merkel wants people to consider the global impact of individual choices. Photograph by Thomas Ames Jr.

Dartmouth’s sustainability coordinator, Jim Merkel, recently delivered a Thayer School Jones Seminar on sustainable design. Merkel, who holds a B.S. in electrical engineering, is on a mission to embed ecological values and practices into the College’s strategic planning, curriculum, student life, and community relationships. Much of his Jones Seminar centered on ecological footprints.

What is an ecological footprint and why is it an important measurement?
An ecological footprint estimates a human’s impact on earth. It looks at all the inputs and outputs needed to support a lifestyle. If we want to be sustainable, we need to be able to quantify human consumption. Sustainability has no teeth unless we have a metric to measure against.

What’s the average individual footprint in the U.S. and other parts of the world?
In the U.S., 24 acres per person is the average. Here at Dartmouth it’s even larger. The strongest correlation is income. In Europe, the average is between 12 and 14 acres per person. What’s interesting to note is that Europeans have a quality of life that’s comparable to ours despite having a smaller footprint. The countries of Eastern Europe and the southern hemisphere average about 6 acres per person and really poor nations average 1 to 3 acres. About 4 billion people have footprints of less than 4 acres.

How do you calculate your footprint?
There are three methods. You can use a chart to correlate income to footprint. The second method is a questionnaire that is online at myfootprint.org. The third method is filling out a detailed spreadsheet with more than 100 items. It includes categories such as food, housing, transportation, long-lasting goods, and wastes. The big ones are car, house size, utilities, and diet. Eating vegetarian versus meat is a huge impact.

What changes did you make in your own life to reduce consumption and waste?
The biggest is that I have been car-free for 16 years. I’m judicious with my fossil fuel use by using bicycles and avoiding air travel. I’ve lived in spaces ranging from 150 to 500 square feet per person. That’s putting me closer to the global average.

What was most difficult to reduce?
Things like weddings and nieces and nephews graduating from college make me choose whether to travel. It’s tough to hurt the Earth to see your family. It’s not always a clear choice inside myself.

Are there significant efficiencies to be gained by living in a community with people who are all trying to minimize their impact on the biosphere?
Yes, for sure. When you share a refrigerator with three people, it’s one-quarter the impact. When you share things you halve the footprint immediately. And then if you care for it by making it last twice as long, you’re halving it again. And if you improve your technology, you can have multiplying benefits.

Does your engineering background influence the way you approach sustainable living?
Definitely. I’m a guy who loves numbers. Things have got to make sense to me in terms of flows of resources.

Is there anything you wish engineers would keep in mind as they develop new technologies?
I’d like them to think, “What are the unintended consequences of the project?” There are going to be negative unintended consequences, so widen your awareness. Think of the impact on ecology and on social systems. When you design considering social and ecological systems, the design is going to be much tougher. It will take creativity, but for an engineer it’s just going to be more fun. For me, the harder the problem, the more fun I have with it. There’s no reason today to be designing with non-renewable materials.

When you talk to audiences about sustainability, what’s the biggest objection you encounter?
I don’t encounter that much objection. People may slip into a discussion of whether others are open-minded enough to live sustainably. The question is: can you become the doctor who takes the medicine first? I would like to challenge the engineers to show that they can live sustainably, consuming an equitable portion of the biosphere.

Of all the ways you’ve found to conserve, reuse, and re-engineer, what is your favorite?
I really like the concept of share, care, conserve. Multiplication is amazing. When you can still have a car but its impact is 1/32 of what it would be if you jumped into your car by yourself every time, it’s amazing.

For more photos, visit our Energy Technologies and Sustainability set on Flickr.