Dr. Robert Linton Hellens, 82, of Boothbay Harbor, died Jan. 28 at his home, following a long struggle with Wegener’s disease.
He was born in Fall River, Mass., Aug. 4, 1925, the son of the late Rev. Dr. Clarence Hellens and Audrey Linton Hellens.
He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in physics from Brown University, did postgraduate study at Purdue University, and received a Ph.D. in physics from Yale University in 1951, studying under Prof. Henry Margenau. While finishing his dissertation, he taught in the Physics Department of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
He joined the Bettis Laboratory of Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Penn. and worked on the nuclear reactor design of the Nautilus, the U.S. Navy’s first nuclear powered vessel. He then worked at Combustion Engineering in Windsor Locks, Conn., and Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. on nuclear power plant design. While at Brookhaven, he was the first American to participate in the exchange of scientists between the United States and British national laboratories, spending two years at the Winfreth Laboratory in Dorset.
During his time at Brookhaven, he taught as an adjunct professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department at Columbia University. He returned to combustion engineering and retired as chief physicist in 1985. After his retirement he served on the visiting committees of the Nuclear Engineering Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and of the Applied Physics Department of Argonne National Laboratory.
He published over 40 journal articles and book chapters and lectured extensively in this country and Europe. He was a U.S. delegate to all three of the Atoms-for-Peace Conferences in Geneva, Switzerland. A prudent and cautious man, the safety of the operators and general public was always foremost in his reactor designs.
Dr. Hellens received many awards and honors in his career, including the Ernest O. Lawrence Award, given by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1971 for his work on the design of pressurized water reactors, recognizing his contributions on solving the Boltzmann Transport Equation using Fourier transform methods. He was invited to address the 1982 symposium, “The Neutron and Its Applications,” marking the 50th anniversary of the neutron’s discovery at Cambridge University. He was an emeritus fellow of the American Nuclear Society and a member of the first ANS delegation to visit and survey the nuclear power program of the People’s Republic of China.
He had many and varied interests, including music, woodworking, history, sailing, gardening, golf, and dogs. He was able to combine the first three of these in building and playing three replicas of early harpsichords, one of which was recently acquired by the Music Department of Lipscomb University.
He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Sally Fletcher Hellens; daughters and sons-in-law, Nancy and James Gregory of Sudbury, Mass., Diane Hellens and Neel Teague of McLean, Va., and Susan and Andrew Griffith of Simsbury, Conn.; granddaughters, Jennifer and Hillary Gregory, Elizabeth and Rebecca Teague, and Claire and Meghan Griffith; and two nephews and a niece.
He was predeceased by a sister, Jean Zeamer.
There will be a graveside service in the spring in Shrewsbury, Mass.
Memorial contributions can be made in his name to Heart-to-Heart Health Services, St. Andrew’s Village, 145 Emery Lane, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538.
Arrangements are entrusted to Simmons, Harrington and Hall Funeral Home and Cremation Service, Wiscasset Rd., Boothbay.
