Henry Petroski | Academic Influence

Henry Petroski's AcademicInfluence.com Rankings

Henry Petroski

Engineering

#115

World Rank

#243

Historical Rank

#60

USA Rank

Civil Engineering

#3

World Rank

#7

Historical Rank

#2

USA Rank

Applied Physics

#1424

World Rank

#1455

Historical Rank

#165

USA Rank

engineering Degrees

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Engineering

Henry Petroski's Degrees

Bachelors Civil Engineering Manhattan College

Why Is Henry Petroski Influential?

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According to Wikipedia, Henry Petroski was an American engineer specializing in failure analysis. A professor both of civil engineering and history at Duke University, he was also a prolific author. Petroski has written over a dozen books – beginning with To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design and including a number of titles detailing the industrial design history of common, everyday objects, such as pencils, paper clips, toothpicks, and silverware. His first book was made into the film When Engineering Fails. He was a frequent lecturer and a columnist for the magazines American Scientist and Prism.

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Henry Petroski's Published Works

Number of citations in a given year to any of this author's works

Total number of citations to an author for the works they published in a given year. This highlights publication of the most important work(s) by the author

Published Works

To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1986) (693)
The Evolution of Useful Things (1992) (325)
COMPUTATION OF THE WEIGHT FUNCTION FROM A STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR. (1977) (303)
To Engineer is Human (1985) (208)
Robert Collin - Foundations for Microwave Engineering 2e (IEEE Wiley).pdf (2004) (192)
Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering (1994) (179)
Invention by design: how engineers get from thought to thing (1996) (172)
Success through Failure: The Paradox of Design (2006) (78)
The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems (2010) (64)
Simple static and dynamic models for the cracked elastic beam (1981) (63)
Technology of the Ubiquitous. (Book Reviews: The Pencil. A History of Design and Circumstance.) (1989) (48)
The Boeing 777 (1995) (45)
To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure (2012) (45)
Crossing the Valley of Death (2017) (44)
The Success of Failure (2001) (44)
Engineering ≠ science (2010) (42)
Small things considered : why there is no perfect design (2004) (38)
The Book on the Bookshelf (1999) (33)
Controllable states of elastic heat conductors (1968) (32)
Dugdale plastic zone sizes for edge cracks (1979) (32)
Failure as Source of Engineering Judgment: Case of John Roebling (1993) (29)
Grand Constructors. (Book Reviews: Engineers of Dreams. Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America.) (1996) (28)
Weight functions from multiple reference states and crack profile derivatives (1991) (26)
Engineers of Dreams (1995) (25)
Structural dynamics of piping with stable cracks: Some simple models (1983) (25)
The concrete cylinder: stress analysis and failure modes (1987) (23)
Polishing the Gem: A First‐Year Design Project (1998) (23)
Levees and other raised ground (2006) (22)
The Permanent Deformation of a Cracked Cantilever Struck Transversely at Its Tip (1984) (20)
Remaking the world (1997) (19)
Controllable states of rigid heat conductors (1968) (17)
The Road Taken: The History and Future of America's Infrastructure (2016) (16)
Influence of aggregate size on fracture toughness of concrete (1987) (16)
Fracture Behavior of Notched Concrete Cylinder (1987) (15)
Some Exact Solutions to the Equations of Nonlinear Thermoelasticity (1970) (15)
Plastic response to impact of a simply supported beam with a stable crack (1985) (15)
Stability of a crack in a cantilever beam undergoing large plastic deformation after impact (1984) (15)
Paconius and the pedestal for Apollo: A case study of error in conceptual design (1991) (14)
Failure as a unifying theme in design (1989) (13)
The cracked brazilian specimen for fracture toughness testing of concrete (1985) (12)
The Response of Cracked Cylindrical Shells (1980) (12)
On the cracked Bell (1984) (11)
Plastic Response of Cantilevers with Stable Cracks (1985) (11)
On detecting a crack by tapping a beam (1986) (11)
Comments on “Free vibration of beams with abrupt changes in cross-section” (1984) (10)
Effects of Cracks on the Response of Circular Cylindrical Shells (1980) (10)
Engineers of dreams : great bridge builders and the spanning of America (1996) (10)
Framing Hypotheses: A Cautionary Tale (2003) (9)
GALILEO'S CONFIRMATION OF A FALSE HYPOTHESIS: A PARADIGM OF LOGICAL ERROR IN DESIGN (1992) (9)
The Toothpick: Technology and Culture (2007) (9)
Technology and architecture in an age of terrorism (2004) (9)
Effect of age on splitting tensile strength and fracture resistance of concrete (1987) (9)
From know-how to nowhere (1992) (8)
To Forgive Design (2012) (8)
The Essential Engineer (2010) (7)
Human Error and the Case for Case Histories in Design (1991) (7)
Daubert and Kumho (1999) (7)
Design Paradigms: Introduction (1994) (7)
Vanities of the Bonfire (2000) (7)
On the finite torsion and radial heating of thermoelastic cylinders (1975) (7)
Lives of the Engineers (2004) (6)
Construction of a Dynamic Weight Function From a Finite-Element Solution for a Cracked Beam (1980) (6)
The Petronas Twin Towers (1996) (6)
Controllable states of elastic heat conductors obeying a fourier law (1975) (6)
Technology and the humanities (1949) (6)
Forethought: A survey of ideas, trends, people, and practices on the business horizon (2004) (5)
Tacoma Narrows Bridges (2009) (5)
John Scott Russell (1998) (5)
On the use of incomplete constitutive information in thermoelasticity (1974) (5)
Designed to Fail (1997) (5)
Next Slide, Please (2005) (5)
Engineers as Writers (1993) (4)
On the use of steady linear temperature fields to characterize a class of rigid heat conductors (1969) (4)
The Invisible Engineer (1990) (4)
An Engineer's Alphabet: Gleanings from the Softer Side of a Profession (2011) (4)
From Connections to Collections (1998) (4)
Departures from Fourier's law (1975) (4)
Beyond Engineering: Essays and Other Attempts to Figure Without Equations (1986) (4)
The Importance of Engineering History (2001) (4)
Technology and Societies (1998) (4)
The Impact of Society on Technology: From Bridges to Large Enclosed Spaces (1990) (4)
Simple models for the stability of a crack in a cantilever beam subject to impact (1985) (4)
On the finite deformation and heating of thermoelastic spherical sectors (1975) (4)
Worst-case cracks in ductile cantilevers struck transversely at the tip (1984) (4)
Bridge of size (1987) (4)
An Engineer's Alphabet: List of Illustrations and Credits (2011) (4)
Process zone analysis for the single-edge notched specimen: Part I. Process zone size and crack profile (1991) (3)
An Independent Inventor (1998) (3)
What Lessons Will Be Learned from the Florida Condo Collapse? (2021) (3)
The Ferris Wheel (1993) (3)
Vitruvius’s Auger and Galileo’s Bones: Paradigms of Limits to Size in Design (1992) (3)
The Fall of Skyscrapers (2002) (3)
Case Histories and the Study of Structural Failures (1995) (3)
Effects of cracks in irradiation-embrittled hexagonal subassembly ducts (1978) (3)
On the Insufficiency of Controllable States to Characterize a Class of Rigid Heat Conductors (1971) (3)
Success Syndrome: The Collapse of the Dee Bridge (1994) (3)
Alexander Calder: The Paris Years, 1926-1933 (2008) (3)
The Dynamic Response of Cracked Fast Reactor Subassembly Ducts (1980) (3)
Galileo and the marble column: A paradigm of human error in design (1991) (3)
The Sonnet as Science (2020) (3)
The Importance of Historic Preservation (2003) (3)
Elastic-Plastic Analysis of Pressurized Ducts with Rounded Corners (1977) (3)
History and Failure (1992) (3)
The Civil Engineer: On the occasion of a sesquicentennial (2002) (3)
Hoover Dam Bypass (2010) (3)
Building firm foundations (1995) (3)
Plane-Strain Stress Intensity Factors for Cracked Hexagonal Subassembly Ducts (1977) (3)
Shopping by Design (2005) (3)
Thermomechanical states with controllable invariant relations (1974) (2)
Success through Failure (2018) (2)
The Swifts: Printers in the Age of Typesetting Races (2004) (2)
Success and failure in engineering (2001) (2)
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (2009) (2)
The Iron Ring (1995) (2)
Work and Play (1999) (2)
Design Paradigms: The Design Climate for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1994) (2)
STRESS-INTENSITY FACTORS FOR IRRADIATION-EMBRITTLED HEXAGONAL SUBASSEMBLY DUCTS. (2)
On the Dynamic Response of Ductile Piping Containing Stable Cracks (1983) (2)
The Dynamic Response of Cracked Hexagonal Subassembly Ducts (1979) (2)
The Evolution of Eyeglasses (2013) (2)
Great Achievements & Grand Challenges (2010) (2)
Trends in the applied mechanics literature (1977) (2)
[A great profession]. (1975) (2)
On the Fracture of Pencil Points (1987) (2)
The Origins, Founding, and Early Years of the American Society of Civil Engineers: A Case Study in Successful Failure Analysis (2002) (2)
Engineering: History and Failure (2011) (2)
Desarrollo e investigación (1997) (1)
Scientists as Inventors (2008) (1)
Through the Lens of The Big Bang Theory (2018) (1)
Structural Analysis: A Historical Approach. Jacques Heyman (1999) (1)
Impossible Points, Erroneous Walks (2014) (1)
Measures and mismeasures of the applied mechanics literature (1987) (1)
STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS FOR CORNER-CRACKED SUBASSEMBLY DUCTS. (2017) (1)
On the approximation of the thermal conductivity of rigid heat conductors as a Cauchy Problem (1972) (1)
Fracture experiments with cracked and embrittled hexcan sections (1979) (1)
Good Guys, Wiseguys, and Putting Up Buildings: A Life in Construction by Samuel C. Florman (review) (2013) (1)
A Round Pie in a Square Box (2011) (1)
Bath Iron Works (2001) (1)
William Barclay Parsons (2008) (1)
Time-Sensitive Material (2000) (1)
Past and Future Failures (2004) (1)
The State of Our Infrastructure (2017) (1)
Things Small and Large (2006) (1)
Will the Museum of Failure Succeed (2018) (1)
On characterizing rigid heat conductors (1970) (1)
Engineer in the making. (1991) (1)
On the Backs of Envelopes (1991) (1)
Robert Wilson: Fermilab's Master Physicist, Sculptor, and Engineer (2015) (1)
Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer (2002) (1)
Keeping Swaying Bridges from Falling Down (2002) (1)
Global Shipping and the Raising of the Bayonne Bridge (2015) (1)
Challenges and Prizes (2010) (1)
Development and Research (1997) (1)
Design Paradigms: Failure as a Source of Engineering Judgment (1994) (1)
Look first to failure (2005) (1)
Engineering in the Abstract (2013) (1)
On controllable heat flux fields and the determination of temperature-dependent thermal conductivities (1973) (1)
The Electronic Newspaper: An Easy Route to 1984?. (1982) (1)
A short history of nuclear editing (1983) (1)
Teaching Technology to Nontechnologists. (1984) (1)
On 19th-Century Perceptions of Iron Bridge Failures (1983) (1)
Size effects in fracture mechanics: Implications for fast reactor subassembly analysis and safety☆ (1984) (1)
Mathematics in Continuum Mechanics (1973) (1)
Design Paradigms: The Britannia Tubular Bridge (1992) (1)
Why 'The Pencil'? (2000) (1)
The Engineering Project: Its Nature, Ethics, and Promise (review) (2010) (1)
Process zone analysis for the single-edge notched specimen: Part II. Process zone growth and crack propagation (1991) (1)
Everyday Design (2001) (1)
An Engineer's Alphabet: N (2011) (0)
Problematic Pedestrian Bridges (2017) (0)
Bridges of Charleston (2006) (0)
China Journal I (2001) (0)
Politicians Are Not Technologists: Technologists Are Not Politicians (1982) (0)
The Quest for a Better World (2000) (0)
Fuel Cells (2003) (0)
Images of an Engineer (1991) (0)
Frozen Tomatoes and Other Construction Materials (2022) (0)
Early Education (2003) (0)
Traffic Signals, Dilemma Zones, and Red-Light Cameras (2016) (0)
Success and Failure in Design (2005) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: W (2011) (0)
Aspirants, Apprentices, and Student Engineers (2014) (0)
China Journal II (2001) (0)
Is Applied Mechanics a Mature Field (1987) (0)
Dorton Arena: On the occasion of its 50th anniversary and its dedication as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark (2002) (0)
Design Paradigms: The Design and Collapse of the Dee Bridge (1994) (0)
Deformation of Cracked Cylindrical Vessels (1981) (0)
Can an Engineer Appreciate Art (2015) (0)
3. Intangible Things (2013) (0)
Human Factors (2000) (0)
Science and Engineering as Puzzle Solving (2022) (0)
THREE. Designed to Fail (2012) (0)
Twin Bridges (2001) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: C (2011) (0)
From Lowly Paper Clips to Towering Suspension Bridges (2015) (0)
The Push and Pull of Friction (2022) (0)
New and Future Bridges (1998) (0)
Design Paradigms: Conclusion (1994) (0)
1. From Plato’s Cave to Powerpoint (2018) (0)
Delivering Papers (2002) (0)
The Distance We've Come (2000) (0)
Learning from Paper Cups (2016) (0)
ONE. By Way of Concrete Examples (2012) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: B (2011) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: I (2011) (0)
TEN. Legal Matters (2012) (0)
Drawing Bridges (1999) (0)
Engineering and History: Manifestations in Monuments (1996) (0)
Slide Rules: Gone But Not Forgotten (2017) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: V (2011) (0)
Men and Women of Progress (1994) (0)
Altering an Icon (2023) (0)
Bridges of the Mediterranean (2011) (0)
Dip into the century's technological past (1999) (0)
Structural dynamics of cracked piping (1980) (0)
I See You, 'N Double You (1970) (0)
The Panama Canal (1993) (0)
Design Paradigms: Historic Bridge Failures and Caveats for Future Designs (1994) (0)
Bright Light or Blight Over Brighton (2017) (0)
Twists, Tags and Ties (2008) (0)
Pushing the limits (2008) (0)
Paying for Roads and Bridges (2016) (0)
Second Life of a Tied-Arch Bridge (2015) (0)
H. D. Thoreau, Engineer (1991) (0)
How Paperweights Emerged from the Desk of Necessity (2016) (0)
The Mathematical Preparation for Engineering. (1981) (0)
Engineered for Trust (2021) (0)
An Anthropomorphic Model (2013) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: M (2011) (0)
FOUR. Mechanics of Failure (2012) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: S (2011) (0)
What's In a Name Tag? (2007) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: K (2011) (0)
The Architecture of Paradise: Survivals of Eden and Jerusalem by William Alexander McClung (1985) (0)
Inventing for Fun and Profit. Jacob Rabinow. San Francisco Press, San Francisco, CA 1900. x, 278 pp., illus. $18.75. History of Technology Monographs. (1990) (0)
Offshore engineering: oil from troubled waters (1984) (0)
The Bridge that United Two Cities (2016) (0)
Privileged order (1995) (0)
Plastic Response to Impact of Beams with Cracks: Simple Models for Cracked Piping (1985) (0)
A Taxed Infrastructure (2019) (0)
Response of cracked hexagonal subassembly ducts to impact loading. [LMFBR] (1979) (0)
Dynamic behavior of stress-intensity factors for vibrating cylinders with axial cracks (1984) (0)
The Lines on the Road: Infrastructure in Perspective (2016) (0)
Fatigue crack propagation in concrete (1989) (0)
The Minneapolis Bridge (2009) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: J (2011) (0)
Superposition of finite deformations in Mooney-Rivlin materials (1977) (0)
Art and Iron and Steel (2002) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: T (2011) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: X (2011) (0)
TWO. Things Happen (2012) (0)
Pill Organizers as Organized Design (2019) (0)
The Beginnings of the American Society of Civil Engineers (2009) (0)
7. The Historical Future (2013) (0)
Design as obviating failure (1993) (0)
FIVE. A Repeating Problem (2012) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: O (2011) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: Preface (2011) (0)
Towers: Upright, Leaning, and Collapsed (2020) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: A (2011) (0)
Effect of corner radius on hexcan deformation. [LMFBR] (1976) (0)
Arches and Domes (2011) (0)
Design Paradigms: Paconius and the Pedestal for Apollo (1994) (0)
Miami Bridge Collapse (2018) (0)
An Incubator for Cooperation Across the Disciplines (2015) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: Y (2011) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: L (2011) (0)
Design Paradigms: Galileo's Confirmation of a False Hypothesis (1994) (0)
Down Under (1999) (0)
Modelling Coastal And Marine Processes 2ed (2017) (0)
Once an Engineer... (2009) (0)
Modelling the cat falling (2017) (0)
SIX. The Old and the New (2012) (0)
Pyramids as Inclined Planes (2004) (0)
Buildings and Bookstacks (1999) (0)
The Beauty of Threes (2022) (0)
Hotel Design (2003) (0)
Constructing a Bridge: An Exploration of Engineering Culture, Design, and Research in Nineteenth-Century France and America. Eda Kranakis (1997) (0)
FOURTEEN. History and Failure (2012) (0)
Fazlur Khan (1999) (0)
The Portable Radio in American Life. By Michael Brian Schiffer · Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991. xvii + 259 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, and index. $45.00. ISBN 0-8165-1259-0 (1992) (0)
Concrete Canoes (2000) (0)
Engineering failures and professional responsibility (1988) (0)
The Channel Tunnel (1994) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: G (2011) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: E (2011) (0)
Rise and Fall of the Pocket Protector (2014) (0)
Super-Tall and Super-Slender Structures (2019) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: Q (2011) (0)
Why things break (2007) (0)
Big Dig, Big Bridge (2004) (0)
Lecterns Are Not Podiums (2016) (0)
The Simplest Thing (2007) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: F (2011) (0)
The Business Card as an Object of Design (2018) (0)
A bridge too far (2012) (0)
THIRTEEN. Without a Leg to Stand On (2012) (0)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Engineer (2012) (0)
Foundations: From Solid to Faulty Towers (2019) (0)
ELEVEN. Back-Seat Designers (2012) (0)
Museums of Bridges (2023) (0)
TWELVE. Houston, You Have a Problem (2012) (0)
Sewage, motorists and more (2000) (0)
The Public Lecture and Social Mobility (2023) (0)
Design Paradigms: Preface (1994) (0)
NINE. Before, during, and after the Fall (2012) (0)
The Beginnings of the Nobel Institution: The Science Prizes, 1901–1915 by Elisabeth Crawford (1986) (0)
Testing 500-Year-Old Hypotheses (2020) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: H (2011) (0)
The Bay Bridge (2005) (0)
5. Building on Success (2013) (0)
Bottle and Can Openers as Levers (2017) (0)
Millennium Legacies (2001) (0)
6. Stepping-stones to Super-spans (2013) (0)
"ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECT OF SEQUENTIAL INJECTION MOLDING ON WELD LINES PROPERTIES" (2019) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: Dedication (2011) (0)
This Is the Title. Or Is It a Head? (2019) (0)
Good Drawings and Bad Dreams (1991) (0)
Learning From Failure (1985) (0)
A Bridge and Observatory (2008) (0)
Infrastructure in Service to Well-Being (2022) (0)
Making Headlines (2000) (0)
Words About Invention: Inventing for Fun and Profit . Jacob Rabinow. San Francisco Press, San Francisco, CA 1900. x, 278 pp., illus. $18.75. History of Technology Monographs (1990) (0)
The Story of Two Houses (2014) (0)
Engineering bridges: from concept to reality (abstract) (1996) (0)
Benjamin Franklin Bridge (2002) (0)
Design Paradigms: Vitruvius's Auger and Galileo's Bones: Paradigms of Limits to Size in Design (1994) (0)
Solving Failures Around the House (2020) (0)
Effects of cracks on the response of shell structures (1979) (0)
Henry Petroski-"The Paradox of Design: Success through Failure" (2007) (0)
Waldo-hancock bridge (2006) (0)
Make It Work - Building, by A. Haslam, D. Glover (1995) (0)
Bridges of America (2016) (0)
Engineering Spelled Out (2011) (0)
Overlooked or Ignored Modes of Failure (2019) (0)
EIGHT. The Obligation of an Engineer (2012) (0)
The Merritt Parkway and Other Driving Respites (2016) (0)
Engineer in the Making: The Idea Factory . Learning To Think at MIT. Pepper White. Dutton (Penguin), New York, 1991. xviii, 313 pp., illus. $21.95. (1991) (0)
SEVEN. Searching for a Cause (2012) (0)
All Things Cryptic (2021) (0)
An Engineer's Alphabet: P (2011) (0)
Floating Bridges (2003) (0)
How Poetry Breeds Reactors (1983) (0)
Design Paradigms: Bibliography (1994) (0)
Assembling Big Data from Failures (2018) (0)
Galileo and the Marble Column (1994) (0)
Fax and Context (1996) (0)
In Memory of the Offprint (2014) (0)
Driven by Economics (2016) (0)
Unbuilding a Maine Landmark (2013) (0)

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