| Charles Leopold Willibald Trinks | |
| Birth Date: | 10 December 1874 |
| Birth Place: | Berlin, Germany |
| Death Place: | Tucson, Arizona, US |
| Field: | Mechanical Engineering Professor |
| Work Institution: | Carnegie Tech |
| Alma Mater: | Technische Hochschule Berlin |
| Known For: | Industrial furnaces Steel mill roll pass design |
| Prizes: | Percy Nicholls Award (1958) |
Charles Leopold Willibald Trinks (10 December 1874 in Berlin – 24 May 1966 in Tucson, Arizona, United States) was a German scientist who emigrated to Pennsylvania soon after getting his degree from the Technische Hochschule in Charlottnburg (now Technische Universität Berlin). Working as an engineer in different US companies he became the world authority in industrial furnaces. At the Carnegie Institute of Technology he organized the Department of Mechanical Engineering.[1]
Willibald Trinks was born 1874 in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia. He got his tertiary education at Königlich Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin). Then after working in Germany for two years he emigrated to Pennsylvania in the United States. He had 3 marriages: Maud Alice Moore, whom he married in 1902 in Allegheny County. After her death he married her sister Edith Moore. In 1938 he married Ruth Eudora Waxham in Pittsburgh. His two sons died early: Charles Henry Gisbert Trinks (1903 - 1914), and Harold A. Trinks (1911 - 1929). Willibald Trinks died in 1966.
W. Trinks graduated with distinction from the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg in 1897. Before his emigration to the US he worked as a mechanical engineer in Germany for two years.
In the United States he was engineer at William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Company Philadelphia, Southwark Foundry and Machine Company in Philadelphia, then Chief Engineer at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Professor Trinks was one of the first appointments of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he headed the Department of Mechanical Engineering for 38 years.