John David Hunt. 12 December 1936—8 December 2012

Abstract

John Hunt was a scholar of the solidification of metallic alloys, and published seminal works that are of influence today in the design of alloy casting, welding and additive manufacturing processes. John was raised in the West Country of England, and following school did National Service in the Royal Air Force. He entered the University of Cambridge in 1957, being awarded an honours BA in metallurgy in 1960, and a PhD for studies of solidification of eutectic alloys in 1963. John met Ann Carroll during his Cambridge studies; they married in 1961 and later had three children. From 1963 to 1965 John carried out research with Ken Jackson at Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, USA. They published groundbreaking papers on solidification and pioneered the use of transparent organic analogues. John returned to England and, following a year working at the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell, he joined the faculty at the University of Oxford in 1966. During a 36-year academic career at Oxford, John made significant contributions to the scientific understanding of solidification on many topics, including dendritic array growth, eutectic and peritectic solidification, the columnar-to-equiaxed transition and twin roll casting. As well as being a talented experimentalist, he published many groundbreaking theoretical analyses and also pioneered the use of numerical methods for the simulation of solidification phenomena. He was an accomplished educator of undergraduate and postgraduate students, and a fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. John was a family man, and kept geese and pigs, grew apples and made legendary cider at his old farmhouse home north of Oxford.