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61 Butler, Edward
[br]b. 1863d. 1940[br]English motoring pioneer, designer of a motor tricycle.[br]In 1884 Butler patented a design for a motor tricycle that was shown that year at the Stanley Cycle Show and in the following year at the Inventions Exhibition. In 1887 he patented his "Petrol-tricycle", which was built the following year. The cycle was steered through its two front wheels, while it was driven through its single rear wheel. The motor, which was directly connected to the rear wheel hub by means of overhung cranks, consisted of a pair of water-cooled 2 1/4 in. (57 mm) bore cylinders with an 8 in. (203 mm) stroke working on the Clerk two-stroke cycle. Ignition was by electric spark produced by a wiper breaking contact with the piston, adopted from Butler's own design of electrostatic ignition machine; this was later replaced by a Ruhmkorff coil and a battery. There was insufficient power with direct drive and the low engine speed of c.100 rpm, producing a road speed of approximately 12 mph (19 km/h), so Butler redesigned the engine with a 6 3/4 in. (171 mm) stroke and a four-stroke cycle with an epicyclic reduction gear drive of 4:1 and later 6:1 ratio which could run at 600 rpm. The combination of restrictive speed-limit laws and shortsightedness of his backers prevented development, despite successful road demonstrations. Interest was non-existent by 1895, and the following year this first English internal combustion engined motorcycle was broken up for the scrap value of some 163 lb (74 kg) of copper and brass contained in its structure.[br]Further ReadingC.F.Caunter, 1982, Motor Cycles, 3rd edn, London: HMSO/Science Museum.IMcN -
62 Caproni, Giovanni Battista (Gianni), Conte di Taliedo
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 3 June 1886 Massone, Italyd. 29 October 1957 Rome, Italy[br]Italian aircraft designer and manufacturer, well known for his early large-aircraft designs.[br]Gianni Caproni studied civil and electrical engineering in Munich and Liège before moving on to Paris, where he developed an interest in aeronautics. He built his first aircraft in 1910, a biplane with a tricycle undercarriage (which has been claimed as the world's first tricycle undercarriage). Caproni and his brother, Dr Fred Caproni, set up a factory at Malpensa in northern Italy and produced a series of monoplanes and biplanes. In 1913 Caproni astounded the aviation world with his Ca 30 three-engined biplane bomber. There followed many variations, of which the most significant were the Ca 32 of 1915, the first large bomber to enter service in significant numbers, and the Ca 42 triplane of 1917 with a wing span of almost 30 metres.After the First World War, Caproni designed an even larger aircraft with three pairs of triplane wings (i.e. nine wings each of 30 metres span) and eight engines. This Ca 60 flying boat was designed to carry 100 passengers. In 1921 it made one short flight lightly loaded; however, with a load of sandbags representing sixty passengers, it crashed soon after take-off. The project was abandoned but Caproni's company prospered and expanded to become one of the largest groups of companies in Italy. In the 1930s Caproni aircraft twice broke the world altitude record. Several Caproni types were in service when Italy entered the Second World War, and an unusual research aircraft was under development. The Caproni-Campini No. 1 (CC2) was a jet, but it did not have a gas-turbine engine. Dr Campini's engine used a piston engine to drive a compressor which forced air out through a nozzle, and by burning fuel in this airstream a jet was produced. It flew with limited success in August 1940, amid much publicity: the first German jet (1939) and the first British jet (1941) were both flown in secret. Caproni retained many of his early aircraft for his private museum, including some salvaged parts from his monstrous flying boat.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCreated Conte di Taliedo 1940.Further ReadingDizionario biografico degli Italiani, 1976, Vol. XIX.The Caproni Museum has published two books on the Caproni aeroplanes: Gli Aeroplani Caproni -1909–1935 and Gli Aeroplani Caproni dal 1935 in poi. See also Jane'sfighting Aircraft of World War 1; 1919, republished 1990.JDSBiographical history of technology > Caproni, Giovanni Battista (Gianni), Conte di Taliedo
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63 Clerk, Sir Dugald
[br]b. 31 March 1854 Glasgow, Scotlandd. 12 November 1932 Ewhurst, Surrey, England[br]Scottish mechanical engineer, inventor of the two-stroke internal combustion engine.[br]Clerk began his engineering training at about the age of 15 in the drawing office of H.O.Robinson \& Company, Glasgow, and in his father's works. Meanwhile, he studied at the West of Scotland Technical College and then, from 1871 to 1876, at Anderson's College, Glasgow, and at the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds. Here he worked under and then became assistant to the distinguished chemist T.E.Thorpe, who set him to work on the fractional distillation of petroleum, which was to be useful to him in his later work. At that time he had intended to become a chemical engineer, but seeing a Lenoir gas engine at work, after his return to Glasgow, turned his main interest to gas and other internal combustion engines. He pursued his investigations first at Thomson, Sterne \& Company (1877–85) and then at Tangyes of Birmingham (1886–88. In 1888 he began a lifelong partnership in Marks and Clerk, consulting engineers and patent agents, in London.Beginning his work on gas engines in 1876, he achieved two patents in the two following years. In 1878 he made his principal invention, patented in 1881, of an engine working on the two-stroke cycle, in which the piston is powered during each revolution of the crankshaft, instead of alternate revolutions as in the Otto four-stroke cycle. In this engine, Clerk introduced supercharging, or increasing the pressure of the air intake. Many engines of the Clerk type were made but their popularity waned after the patent for the Otto engine expired in 1890. Interest was later revived, particularly for application to large gas engines, but Clerk's engine eventually came into its own where simple, low-power motors are needed, such as in motor cycles or motor mowers.Clerk's work on the theory and design of gas engines bore fruit in the book The Gas Engine (1886), republished with an extended text in 1909 as The Gas, Petrol and Oil Engine; these and a number of papers in scientific journals won him international renown. During and after the First World War, Clerk widened the scope of his interests and served, often as chairman, on many bodies in the field of science and industry.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1917; FRS 1908; Royal Society Royal Medal 1924; Royal Society of Arts Alber Medal 1922.Further ReadingObituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, no. 2, 1933.LRD -
64 Cugnot, Nicolas Joseph
SUBJECT AREA: Land transport[br]b. 26 February 1725 Void, Meuse, Franced. 2 October 1804 Paris, France[br]French military engineer.[br]Cugnot studied military engineering in Germany and returned to Paris by 1769, having left the service of Austria, where he taught military engineering. It was while serving in the army of Les Pays Bas that he invented a "fusil" or carbine, which was adopted by the Archduke Charles and put into service in the Uhlan regiments.In 1769 he invented a fardier à feu, also called a cabriolet, a steam-driven, heavy three-wheeled vehicle. This tractor, designed to pull artillery pieces, was driven through its single front wheel by two single-acting cylinders which rotated the wheel through ratchets. The ratchet pawls were carried on levers pivoted on the wheel axis, coupled to the piston rods by connecting rods. Links from pivots half-way along the levers connected upwards to a rocking cross-beam fixed on the end of the steam cock so as to pass steam alternately from the undersized boiler to the two cylinders. The tractor had to be stopped whenever it needed stoking, and its maximum speed was 4 mph (6.4 km/h). The difficulty of controlling it led to its early demolition of a wall, after which it was locked away and eventually preserved in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. This was, in fact, Cugnot's second vehicle: the first model was presented to the due de Choiseul et Guiberuval, who asked for a more robust and powerful machine which was built at the Arsenal at the expense of the state and tested in 1771. Cugnot was granted a pension of 600 livres. After the revolution he tried in vain in 1798 and 1801 to interest Bonaparte in this invention.[br]BibliographyCugnot published a number of military textbooks, including: 1766, Eléments de l'art militaire.1778, Theory of Fortification.Further ReadingD.J.H.Day, 1980, Engines.A.F.Burstall, 1963, A History of Mechanical Engineering. 1933, Dictionnaire de biographie française.IMcN -
65 Douglas, Donald Wills
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 6 April 1892 Brooklyn, New York, USAd. 1 February 1981 Palm Springs, California, USA[br]American aircraft designer best known for bis outstanding airliner', the DC-3.[br]In 1912 Donald Douglas went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study aeronautical engineering. After graduating in this relatively new subject he joined the Glenn L.Martin Company as Chief Engineer. In 1920 he founded the Davis-Douglas Company in California to build an aircraft capable of flying across America non-stop: unfortunately, the Cloudster failed to achieve its target. Douglas reorganized the company in 1921 as the Douglas Company (later it became the Douglas Aircraft Company). In 1924 a team of US Army personnel made the first round-the-world flight in specially designed Douglas World Cruisers, a feat which boosted Douglas's reputation considerably. This reputation was further enhanced by his airliner, designed in 1935, that revolutionized air travel: the Douglas Commercial 3, or DC-3, of which some 13,000 were built. A series of piston-engined airliners followed, culminating in the DC-7. Meanwhile, in the military field, Douglas aircraft played a major part in the Second World War. In the jet age Douglas continued to produce a wide range of successful civil and military aircraft, and the company also moved into the rocket and guided missile business. In 1966 Donald W. Douglas was still Chairman of the company, with Donald W.Douglas Jr as President. In 1967 the company merged with the McDonnell Aircraft Company to become the giant McDonnell Douglas Corporation.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; Daniel Guggenheim Medal 1939.Bibliography1935, "The development and reliability of the modern multi-engined airliner", Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, London (lecture).Further ReadingB.Yenne, 1985, McDonnell Douglas: A Tale of Two Giants, London (pays some attention to both Douglas and McDonnell, but also covers the history of the companies and the aircraft they produced).René J.Francillon, 1979, McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920, London; 1988, 2nd edn (a comprehensive history of the company's aircraft).JDS -
66 Hackworth, Timothy
[br]b. 22 December 1786 Wylam, Northumberland, Englandd. 7 July 1850 Shildon, Co. Durham, England[br]English engineer, pioneer in construction and operation of steam locomotives.[br]Hackworth trained under his father, who was Foreman Blacksmith at Wylam colliery, and succeeded him upon his death in 1807. Between 1812 and 1816 he helped to build and maintain the Wylam locomotives under William Hedley. He then moved to Walbottle colliery, but during 1824 he took temporary charge of Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s works while George Stephenson was surveying the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway and Robert Stephenson was away in South America. In May 1825 Hackworth was appointed to the Stockton \& Darlington Railway (S \& DR) "to have superintendence of the permanent (i.e. stationary) and locomotive engines". He established the workshops at Shildon, and when the railway opened in September he became in effect the first locomotive superintendent of a railway company. From experience of operating Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s locomotives he was able to make many detail improvements, notably spring safety valves. In 1827 he designed and built the locomotive Royal George, with six wheels coupled and inverted vertical cylinders driving the rear pair. From the pistons, drive was direct by way of piston rods and connecting rods to crankpins on the wheels, the first instance of the use of this layout on a locomotive. Royal George was the most powerful and satisfactory locomotive on the S \& DR to date and was the forerunner of Hackworth's type of heavy-goods locomotive, which was built until the mid-1840s.For the Rainhill Trials in 1829 Hackworth built and entered the locomotive Sans Pareil, which was subsequently used on the Bol ton \& Leigh Railway and is now in the Science Museum, London. A working replica was built for the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in 1980. In 1833 a further agreement with the S \& DR enabled Hackworth, while remaining in charge of their locomotives, to set up a locomotive and engineering works on his own account. Its products eventually included locomotives for the London, Brighton \& South Coast and York, Newcastle \& Berwick Railways, as well as some of the earliest locomotives exported to Russia and Canada. Hackworth's son, John Wesley Hackworth, was also an engineer and invented the radial valve gear for steam engines that bears his name.[br]Further ReadingR.Young, 1975, Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive, Shildon: Shildon "Stockton \& Darlington Railway" Silver Jubilee Committee; orig. pub. 1923, London (tends to emphasize Hackworth's achievements at the expense of other contemporary engineers).L.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, London: Longmans (describes much of Hackworth's work and is more objective).E.L.Ahrons, 1927, The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825–1925, London: The Locomotive Publishing Co.PJGR -
67 Hancock, Walter
[br]b. 16 June 1799 Marlborough, Wiltshire, England d. 14 May 1852[br]English engineer and promoter of steam locomotion on common roads.[br]He was the sixth son of James Hancock, a cabinet-maker and merchant of Marlborough, Wiltshire. Initially Walter was apprenticed to a watchmaker and jeweller in London, but he soon turned his attention to engineering. In 1824 he invented a steam engine in which the cylinder and piston were replaced by two flexible bags of several layers of canvas and rubber solution, which were alternately filled with steam. The engine worked satisfactorily at Hancock's works in Stratford and its simplicity and lightness suggested its suitability for road carriages. Initial experiments were not very successful, but Hancock continued to experiment. After many trials in and around London, the Infant began a regular run between Stratford and London in February 1831. The following year he built the Era for the London and Brighton Steam Carriage Company. The Enterprise was next put on the road, by the London and Paddington Steam Carriage Company in April 1833. The Autopsy started to run from Finsbury Square to Pentonville in October of the same year and ran alternately with the Erin between the City and Paddington. Hancock's interest in steam road locomotion continued until about 1840, by which time he had built ten carriages. But by then public interest had declined and most of the companies involved had failed. Later, he turned his attention to indiarubber, working with his brother Thomas Hancock. In 1843 he obtained a patent for cutting rubber into sheets and for a method of preparing a solution of rubber.[br]Bibliography1838, Narrative of Twelve Years of Experiments (1824–1836) Demonstrative of the Practicability and Advantages of Employing Steam Carriages on Common Roads, London.IMcN -
68 Heald, James Nichols
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 21 September 1864 Barre, Massachusetts, USAd. 7 May 1931 Worcester, Massachusetts, USA[br]American mechanical engineer and machine-tool manufacturer who concentrated on grinding machines.[br]James N.Heald was the son of Leander S.Heald and was educated at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1884. He then joined the firm that had been established by his grandfather, Stephen Heald, in 1826; this was a machine shop and foundry then known as S.Heald \& Son. When his grandfather died in 1888, James Heald took over the management of the business, which then became known as L.S.Heald \& Son. He concentrated on the manufacture of grinding machines and in 1903 bought out his father's interest and organized the Heald Machine Company. James Heald then began the development of a series of grinding machines designed to meet the needs of the expanding automobile industry. Special machines were produced for grinding piston rings making use of the recently invented magnetic chuck, and for cylinder bores he introduced the planetary grinder. Heald was a member of the National Machine Tool Builders' Association and served as its Treasurer and on its Board of Directors. He was elected a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1917 and was also a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers.[br]Further ReadingRobert S.Woodbury, 1959, History of the Grinding Machine, Cambridge, Mass (describes his grinding machines).L.T.C.Rolt, 1965, Tools for the Job, London; repub. 1986 (describes his grinding machines).RTS -
69 Hulls, Jonathan
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 1699 Campden, Gloucestershire, Englandd. after 1754[br]English inventor (supposed) of the steamboat.[br]Hulls was the first in Britain to attempt to employ steam in propelling a vessel in water. His experiment was made on the River Avon at Evesham in 1737, the main idea being to install a Newcomen engine, the only type then known, on a boat in front of the vessel it was intended to propel, and connected to it with a tow-rope. Six paddles in the stern of the tow boat were fastened to a cross axis connected by ropes to another shaft, which was turned by the engine. Hulls undoubtedly showed how to convert the rectilinear motion of a piston into rotary motion, which is an essential principle in steam locomotion, on land or water.He is described as "the inventor of the Steamboat" on a portrait that once hung at the Institution of Marine Engineers, and his patent for the steamboat is dated 21 December 1736. He published his Description and Draught of a New-Invented Machine ("for carrying vessels or ships out or into any harbour, port or river against wind and tide, or in a calm: for which His Majesty has granted Letters Patent for the sole benefit of the author for the space of 14 years", 1737); this rare book was reprinted in 1855. According to De Morgan, Hull's work probably gave the idea to Symington, as Symington's did to Fulton. Erasmus Darwin had him in mind when he wrote "drag the slow barge". In 1754 Hulls published The Art of Measuring Made Easy by the Help of a New Sliding Scale, which he patented in 1753 together with a machine for weighing gold coins. He also wrote Maltmakers' Instructor.[br]Further ReadingS.Smiles, Boulton and Watt, pp. 72–4. De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes.IMcN -
70 Ivatt, Henry Alfred
[br]b. 16 September 1851 Cambridgeshire, Englandd. 25 October 1923 Haywards Heath, Sussex, England[br]English locomotive engineer, noted for the introduction of 4–4–2-type locomotives to Britain.[br]H.A.Ivatt initially joined the London \& North Western Railway as an apprentice at Crewe Works, and in 1877 moved to the Great Southern \& Western Railway in Ireland, eventually succeeding J.A.F. Aspinall as Locomotive Engineer at its works in Inchicore, Dublin. In 1896 he moved back to England to become Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Northern Railway. Weights of express trains were increasing rapidly there, and in 1898 Ivatt introduced his "Atlantic", or 4–4–2 type, the first locomotive of this wheel arrangement in Britain, which had originated in the USA only three years earlier. It was not until 1902, however, that he took full advantage of its potential, when he introduced an Atlantic with a wide firebox and a larger boiler. Both types were successful and even more so when superheated and fitted with piston valves some years later. The first locomotive of each type to be built is now preserved at the National Railway Museum in York.[br]Further ReadingE.L.Ahrons, 1927, The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825–1925, The Locomotive Publishing Co.C.Hamilton Ellis, 1959, British Railway History, Vol. II: 1877–1947, London: George Allen \& Unwin, pp. 195 and 268–9.PJGR -
71 Otto, Nikolaus August
[br]b. 10 June 1832 Holzhausen, Nassau (now in Germany)d. 26 January 1891 Cologne, Germany[br]German engineer, developer of the four-stroke internal combustion engine.[br]Otto's involvement in internal combustion engines was first prompted by his interest in Lenoir's coal-gas engine of 1860. He built his first engine in 1861; in 1864, Otto's engine came to the attention of Eugen Langen, who arranged for the capital to set up the world's first engine company, N.A.Otto and Company, in Cologne. In 1867 the Otto- Langen free-piston internal combustion engine was exhibited at the Paris Exposition, where it won the gold medal. The company continued to expand, and five years after the Paris triumph its name was changed to the Gasmotoren Fabrik; amongst Otto's colleagues at this time were Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach .Otto is most famous for the development of the four-stroke cycle which was to bear his name. He patented his version of this in 1876, although the principle of the four-stroke cycle had been patented by Alphonse Beau de Rochas fourteen years previously; Otto was the first, however, to put the principle into practice with the "Otto Silent Engine". Many thousands of Otto fourstroke engines had already been built by 1886, when a German patent lawyer successfully claimed that Otto had infringed the Beau de Rochas patent, and Otto's patent was declared invalid.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMédaille d'or, Paris Exposition 1867 (for the Otto-Langen engine).Further Reading1989, History of the Internal Combustion Engine, Detroit: Society of Automotive Engineers.I.McNeil (ed.), 1990, An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology, London and New York: Routledge, 306–7.IMcN -
72 Owens, Michael Joseph
[br]b. 1 January 1859 Mason County, Virginia, USAd. 27 December 1923 Toledo, Ohio, USA[br]American inventor of the automatic glass bottle making machine.[br]To assist the finances of a coal miner's family, Owens entered a glassworks at Wheeling, Virginia, at the tender age of 10, stoking coal into the "glory hole" or furnace where glass was resoftened at various stages of the hand-forming process. By the age of 15 he had become a glassblower.In 1888 Owens moved to the glassworks of Edward Drummond Libbey at Toledo, Ohio, where within three months he was appointed Superintendent and, not long after, a branch manager. In 1893 Owens supervised the company's famous exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. He had by then begun experiments that were to lead to the first automatic bottle-blowing machine. He first used a piston pump to suck molten glass into a mould, and then transferred the gathered glass over another mould into which the bottle was blown by reversing the pump. The first patents were taken out in 1895, followed by others incorporating improvements and culminating in the patent of 8 November 1904 for an essentially perfected machine. Eventually it was capable of producing four bottles a second, thus effecting a revolution in bottle making. Owens, with Libbey and others, set up the Owens Bottle Machine Company in 1903, which Owens himself managed from 1915 to 1919, becoming Vice-President from 1915 until his death. A plant was also established in Manchester in 1905.Besides this, Owens and Libbey first assisted Irving W.Colburn with his experiments on the continuous drawing of flat sheet glass and then in 1912 bought the patents, forming the Owens-Libbey Sheet Glass Company. In all, Owens was granted forty-five US patents, mainly relating to the manufacture and processing of glass. Owens's undoubted inventive genius was hampered by a lack of scientific knowledge, which he made good by judicious consultation.[br]Further Reading1923, Michael J.Owens (privately printed) (a series of memorial articles reprinted from various sources).G.S.Duncan, 1960, Bibliography of Glass, Sheffield: Society of Glass Manufacturers (cites references to Owens's papers and patents).LRD -
73 Pickard, James
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]fl. c. 1780 Birmingham, England[br]English patentee of the application of the crank to steam engines.[br]James Pickard, the Birmingham button maker, also owned a flour mill at Snow Hill, in 1780, where Matthew Wasborough installed one of his rotative engines with ratchet gear and a flywheel. In August 1780, Pickard obtained a patent (no. 1263) for an application to make a rotative engine with a crank as well as gearwheels, one of which was weighted to help return the piston in the atmospheric cylinder during the dead stroke and overcome the dead centres of the crank. Wasborough's flywheel made the counterweight unnecessary, and engines were built with this and Pickard's crank. Several Birmingham business people seem to have been involved in the patent, and William Chapman of Newcastle upon Tyne was assigned the sole rights of erecting engines on the Wasborough-Pickard system in the counties of Northumberland, Durham and York. Wasborough was building engines in the south until his death the following year. The patentees tried to bargain with Boulton \& Watt to exchange the use of the crank for that of the separate condenser, but Boulton \& Watt would not agree, probably because James Watt claimed that one of his workers had stolen the idea of the crank and divulged it to Pickard. To avoid infringing Pickard's patent, Watt patented his sun-and-planet motion for his rotative engines.[br]BibliographyAugust 1780, British patent no. 1,263 (rotative engine with crank and gearwheels).Further ReadingJ.Farey, 1827, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, Historical, Practical and Descriptive, reprinted 1971, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles (contains an account of Pickard's crank). R.L.Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (provides an account of Pickard's crank).R.A.Buchanan, 1978–9, "Steam and the engineering community in the eighteenth century", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 50 ("Thomas Newcomen. A commemorative symposium") (provides details about the development of his engine).RLH -
74 Robinson, George J.
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 1712 Scotlandd. 1798 England[br]Scottish manufacturer who installed the first Boulton \& Watt rotative steam-engine in a textile mill.[br]George Robinson is said to have been a Scots migrant who settled at Burwell, near Nottingham, in 1737, but there is no record of his occupation until 1771, when he was noticed as a bleacher. By 1783 he and his son were describing themselves as "merchants and thread manufacturers" as well as bleachers. For their thread, they were using the system of spinning on the waterframe, but it is not known whether they held a licence from Arkwright. Between 1776 and 1791, the firm G.J. \& J.Robinson built a series of six cotton mills with a complex of dams and aqueducts to supply them in the relatively flat land of the Leen valley, near Papplewick, to the north of Nottingham. By careful conservation they were able to obtain considerable power from a very small stream. Castle mill was not only the highest one owned by the Robinsons, but it was also the highest mill on the stream and was fed from a reservoir. The Robinsons might therefore have expected to have enjoyed uninterrupted use of the water, but above them lived Lord Byron in his estate of Newstead Priory. The fifth Lord Byron loved making ornamental ponds on his property so that he could have mock naval battles with his servants, and this tampered with the water supplies so much that the Robinsons found they were unable to work their mills.In 1785 they decided to order a rotative steam engine from the firm of Boulton \& Watt. It was erected by John Rennie; however, misfortune seemed to dog this engine, for parts went astray to Manchester and when the engine was finally running at the end of February 1786 it was found to be out of alignment so may not have been very successful. At about the same time, the lawsuit against Lord Byron was found in favour of the Robinsons, but the engine continued in use for at least twelve years and was the first of the type which was to power virtually all steamdriven mills until the 1850s to be installed in a textile mill. It was a low-pressure double-acting condensing beam engine, with a vertical cylinder, parallel motion connecting the piston toone end of a rocking beam, and a connecting rod at the other end of the beam turning the flywheel. In this case Watt's sun and planet motion was used in place of a crank.[br]Further ReadingR.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (for an account of the installation of this engine).D.M.Smith, 1965, Industrial Archaeology of the East Midlands, Newton Abbot (describes the problems which the Robinsons had with the water supplies to power their mills).S.D.Chapman, 1967, The Early Factory Masters, Newton Abbot (provides details of the business activities of the Robinsons).J.D.Marshall, 1959, "Early application of steam power: the cotton mills of the Upper Leen", Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 60 (mentions the introduction of this steam-engine).RLH -
75 Séguin, Louis
[br]b. 1869d. 1918[br]French co-designer, with his brother Laurent Séguin (b. 1883 Rhône, France; d. 1944), of the extremely successful Gnome rotary engines.[br]Most early aero-engines were adaptations of automobile engines, but Louis Séguin and his brother Laurent set out to produce a genuine aero-engine. They decided to build a "rotary" engine in which the crankshaft remained stationary and the cylinders rotated: the propeller was attached to the cylinders. The idea was not new, for rotary engines had been proposed by engineers from James Watt to Samuel P. Langley, rival of the Wright brothers. (An engine with stationary cylinders and a rotating crankshaftplus-propeller is classed as a "radial".) Louis Séguin formed the Société des Moteurs Gnome in 1906 to build stationary industrial engines. Laurent joined him to develop a lightweight engine specifically for aeronautical use. They built a fivecylinder air-cooled radial engine in 1908 and then a prototype seven-cylinder rotary engine. Later in the year the Gnome Oméga rotary, developing 50 hp (37 kW), was produced. This was test-flown in a Voisin biplane during June 1909. The Gnome was much lighter than its conventional rivals and surprisingly reliable in view of the technical problems of supplying rotating cylinders with the petrol-air mixture and a spark to ignite it. It was an instant success.Gnomes were mass-produced for use during the First World War. Both sides built and flew rotary engines, which were improved over the years until, by 1917, their size had grown to such an extent that a further increase was not practicable. The gyroscopic effects of a large rotating engine became a serious handicap to manoeuvrability, and the technical problems inherent in a rotary engine were accentuated.[br]Bibliography1912, L'Aérophile 20(4) (Louis Séguin's description of the Gnome).Further ReadingC.F.Taylor, 1971, "Aircraft Propulsion", Smithsonian Annals of Flight 1(4) (an account of the evolution of aircraft piston engines).A.Nahum, 1987, the Rotary Aero-Engine, London.JDS -
76 Vauclain, Samuel Matthews
[br]b. 18 May 1856 Philadelphia, USAd. 4 February 1940 Rosemont, Pennsylvania, USA[br]American locomotive builder, inventor of the Vauclain compound system.[br]Vauclain entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1872 as an apprentice in Altoona workshops and moved to the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1883. He remained with the latter for fifty-seven years, becoming President in 1919 and Chairman of the Board in 1929.The first locomotive to his pattern of compound was built in 1889. There were four cylinders: on each side of the locomotive a high-pressure cylinder and a low-pressure cylinder were positioned one above the other, their pistons driving a common cross-head. They shared, also, a common piston valve. Large two-cylinder compound locomotives had been found to suffer from uneven distribution of power between the two sides of the locomotive: Vauclain's system overcame this problem while retaining the accessibility of a locomotive with two outside cylinders. It was used extensively in the USA and other parts of the world, but not in Britain. Among many other developments, in 1897 Vauclain was responsible for the construction of the first locomotives of the 2–8–2 wheel arrangement.[br]Bibliography1930, Steaming Up (autobiography).Further ReadingObituary, 1941, Transactions of the Newcomen Society 20:180.J.T.van Reimsdijk, 1970, The compound locomotive. Part 1:1876 to 1901', Transactions of the Newcomen Society 43:9 (describes Vauclain's system of compounding).PJGRBiographical history of technology > Vauclain, Samuel Matthews
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77 Wankel, Felix
[br]b. 13 August 1902 Lahr, Black Forest, Germanyd. 9 October 1988 Lindau, Bavaria, Germany[br]German internal combustion engineer, inventor of the Wankel rotary engine.[br]Wankel was first employed at the German Aeronautical Research Establishment, where he worked on rotary valves and valve sealing techniques in the early 1930s and during the Second World War. In 1951 he joined NSU Motorenwerk AG, a motor manufacturer based at Neckarsulm, near Stuttgart, and began work on his rotary engine; the idea for this had first occurred to Wankel as early as 1929. He had completed his first design by 1954, and in 1957 his first prototype was tested. The Wankel engine has a three-pointed rotor, like a prism of an equilateral triangle but with the sides bowed outwards. This rotor is geared to a driveshaft and rotates within a closely fitting and slightly oval-shaped chamber so that, on each revolution, the power stroke is applied to each of the three faces of the rotor as they pass a single spark plug. Two or more rotors may be mounted coaxially, their power strokes being timed sequentially. The engine has only two moving parts, the rotor and the output shaft, making it about a quarter less in weight compared with a conventional piston engine; however, its fuel consumption is high and its exhaust emissions are relatively highly pollutant. The average Wankel engine speed is 5,500 rpm. The first production car to use a Wankel engine was the NSU Ro80, though this was preceded by the experimental NSU Spyder prototype, an open two-seater. The Japanese company Mazda is the only other automobile manufacturer to have fitted a Wankel engine to a production car, although licences were taken by Alfa Romeo, Peugeot- Citroën, Daimler-Benz, Rolls-Royce, Toyota, Volkswagen-Audi (the company that bought NSU in the mid-1970s) and many others; Daimler-Benz even produced a Mercedes C-111 prototype with a three-rotor Wankel engine. The American aircraft manufacturer Curtiss-Wright carried out research for a Wankel aero-engine which never went into production, but the Austrian company Rotax produced a motorcycle version of the Wankel engine which was fitted by the British motorcycle manufacturer Norton to a number of its models.While Wankel became director of his own research establishment at Lindau, on Lake Constance in southern Germany, Mazda continued to improve the rotary engine and by the time of Wankel's death the Mazda RX-7 coupé had become a successful, if not high-selling, Wankel -engined sports car.[br]Further ReadingN.Faith, 1975, Wankel: The Curious Story Behind the Revolutionary Rotary Engine, New York: Stein \& Day.IMcN -
78 вредное пространство
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