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21 Flettner, Anton
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 1 November 1885 Eddersheim-am-Main, Germanyd. 29 December 1961 New York, USA[br]German engineer and inventor who produced a practical helicopter for the German navy in 1940.[br]Anton Flettner was an engineer with a great interest in hydraulics and aerodynamics. At the beginning of the First World War Flettner was recruited by Zeppelin to investigate the possibility of radio-controlled airships as guided missiles. In 1915 he constructed a small radio-controlled tank equipped to cut barbed-wire defences; the military experts rejected it, but he was engaged to investigate radio-controlled pilotless aircraft and he invented a servo-control device to assist their control systems. These servo-controls, or trim tabs, were used on large German bombers towards the end of the war. In 1924 he invented a sailing ship powered by rotating cylinders, but although one of these crossed the Atlantic they were never a commercial success. He also invented a windmill and a marine rudder. In the late 1920s Flettner turned his attention to rotating-wing aircraft, and in 1931 he built a helicopter with small engines mounted on the rotor blades. Progress was slow and it was abandoned after being damaged during testing in 1934. An autogiro followed in 1936, but it caught fire on a test flight and was destroyed. Undeterred, Flettner continued his development work on helicopters and in 1937 produced the Fl 185, which had a single rotor to provide lift and two propellers on outriggers to combat the torque and provide forward thrust. This arrangement was not a great success, so he turned to twin contra-rotating rotors, as used by his rival Focke, but broke new ground by using intermeshing rotors to make a more compact machine. The Fl 265 with its "egg-beater" rotors was ordered by the German navy in 1938 and flew the following year. After exhaustive testing, Flettner improved his design and produced the two-seater Fl 282 Kolibri, which flew in 1940 and became the only helicopter to be used operationally during the Second World War.After the war, Flettner moved to the United States where his intermeshing-rotor idea was developed by the Kaman Aircraft Corporation.[br]Bibliography1926, Mein Weg zum Rotor, Leipzig; also published as The Story of the Rotor, New York (describes his early work with rotors—i.e. cylinders).Further ReadingW.Gunston and J.Batchelor, 1977, Helicopters 1900–1960, London.R.N.Liptrot, 1948, Rotating Wing Activities in Germany during the Period 1939–45, London.K.von Gersdorff and K.Knobling, 1982, Hubschrauber und Tragschrauber, Munich (a more recent publication, in German).JDS -
22 Stephenson, Robert
[br]b. 16 October 1803 Willington Quay, Northumberland, Englandd. 12 October 1859 London, England[br]English engineer who built the locomotive Rocket and constructed many important early trunk railways.[br]Robert Stephenson's father was George Stephenson, who ensured that his son was educated to obtain the theoretical knowledge he lacked himself. In 1821 Robert Stephenson assisted his father in his survey of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway and in 1822 he assisted William James in the first survey of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway. He then went to Edinburgh University for six months, and the following year Robert Stephenson \& Co. was named after him as Managing Partner when it was formed by himself, his father and others. The firm was to build stationary engines, locomotives and railway rolling stock; in its early years it also built paper-making machinery and did general engineering.In 1824, however, Robert Stephenson accepted, perhaps in reaction to an excess of parental control, an invitation by a group of London speculators called the Colombian Mining Association to lead an expedition to South America to use steam power to reopen gold and silver mines. He subsequently visited North America before returning to England in 1827 to rejoin his father as an equal and again take charge of Robert Stephenson \& Co. There he set about altering the design of steam locomotives to improve both their riding and their steam-generating capacity. Lancashire Witch, completed in July 1828, was the first locomotive mounted on steel springs and had twin furnace tubes through the boiler to produce a large heating surface. Later that year Robert Stephenson \& Co. supplied the Stockton \& Darlington Railway with a wagon, mounted for the first time on springs and with outside bearings. It was to be the prototype of the standard British railway wagon. Between April and September 1829 Robert Stephenson built, not without difficulty, a multi-tubular boiler, as suggested by Henry Booth to George Stephenson, and incorporated it into the locomotive Rocket which the three men entered in the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway's Rainhill Trials in October. Rocket, was outstandingly successful and demonstrated that the long-distance steam railway was practicable.Robert Stephenson continued to develop the locomotive. Northumbrian, built in 1830, had for the first time, a smokebox at the front of the boiler and also the firebox built integrally with the rear of the boiler. Then in Planet, built later the same year, he adopted a layout for the working parts used earlier by steam road-coach pioneer Goldsworthy Gurney, placing the cylinders, for the first time, in a nearly horizontal position beneath the smokebox, with the connecting rods driving a cranked axle. He had evolved the definitive form for the steam locomotive.Also in 1830, Robert Stephenson surveyed the London \& Birmingham Railway, which was authorized by Act of Parliament in 1833. Stephenson became Engineer for construction of the 112-mile (180 km) railway, probably at that date the greatest task ever undertaken in of civil engineering. In this he was greatly assisted by G.P.Bidder, who as a child prodigy had been known as "The Calculating Boy", and the two men were to be associated in many subsequent projects. On the London \& Birmingham Railway there were long and deep cuttings to be excavated and difficult tunnels to be bored, notoriously at Kilsby. The line was opened in 1838.In 1837 Stephenson provided facilities for W.F. Cooke to make an experimental electrictelegraph installation at London Euston. The directors of the London \& Birmingham Railway company, however, did not accept his recommendation that they should adopt the electric telegraph and it was left to I.K. Brunel to instigate the first permanent installation, alongside the Great Western Railway. After Cooke formed the Electric Telegraph Company, Stephenson became a shareholder and was Chairman during 1857–8.Earlier, in the 1830s, Robert Stephenson assisted his father in advising on railways in Belgium and came to be increasingly in demand as a consultant. In 1840, however, he was almost ruined financially as a result of the collapse of the Stanhope \& Tyne Rail Road; in return for acting as Engineer-in-Chief he had unwisely accepted shares, with unlimited liability, instead of a fee.During the late 1840s Stephenson's greatest achievements were the design and construction of four great bridges, as part of railways for which he was responsible. The High Level Bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle and the Royal Border Bridge over the Tweed at Berwick were the links needed to complete the East Coast Route from London to Scotland. For the Chester \& Holyhead Railway to cross the Menai Strait, a bridge with spans as long-as 460 ft (140 m) was needed: Stephenson designed them as wrought-iron tubes of rectangular cross-section, through which the trains would pass, and eventually joined the spans together into a tube 1,511 ft (460 m) long from shore to shore. Extensive testing was done beforehand by shipbuilder William Fairbairn to prove the method, and as a preliminary it was first used for a 400 ft (122 m) span bridge at Conway.In 1847 Robert Stephenson was elected MP for Whitby, a position he held until his death, and he was one of the exhibition commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1851. In the early 1850s he was Engineer-in-Chief for the Norwegian Trunk Railway, the first railway in Norway, and he also built the Alexandria \& Cairo Railway, the first railway in Africa. This included two tubular bridges with the railway running on top of the tubes. The railway was extended to Suez in 1858 and for several years provided a link in the route from Britain to India, until superseded by the Suez Canal, which Stephenson had opposed in Parliament. The greatest of all his tubular bridges was the Victoria Bridge across the River St Lawrence at Montreal: after inspecting the site in 1852 he was appointed Engineer-in-Chief for the bridge, which was 1 1/2 miles (2 km) long and was designed in his London offices. Sadly he, like Brunel, died young from self-imposed overwork, before the bridge was completed in 1859.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1849. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1849. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1856. Order of St Olaf (Norway). Order of Leopold (Belgium). Like his father, Robert Stephenson refused a knighthood.Further ReadingL.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, London: Longman (a good modern biography).J.C.Jeaffreson, 1864, The Life of Robert Stephenson, London: Longman (the standard nine-teenth-century biography).M.R.Bailey, 1979, "Robert Stephenson \& Co. 1823–1829", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 50 (provides details of the early products of that company).J.Kieve, 1973, The Electric Telegraph, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.PJGR -
23 Brinell, Johann August
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1849 Småland, Swedend. 17 November 1925 Stockholm, Sweden[br]Swedish metallurgist, inventor of the well-known method of hardness measurement which uses a steel-ball indenter.[br]Brinell graduated as an engineer from Boräs Technical School, and his interest in metallurgy began to develop in 1875 when he became an engineer at the ironworks of Lesjöfors and came under the influence of Gustaf Ekman. In 1882 he was appointed Chief Engineer at the Fagersta Ironworks, where he became one of Sweden's leading experts in the manufacture and heat treatment of tool steels.His reputation in this field was established in 1885 when he published a paper on the structural changes which occurred in steels when they were heated and cooled, and he was among the first to recognize and define the critical points of steel and their importance in heat treatment. Some of these preliminary findings were first exhibited at Stockholm in 1897. His exhibit at the World Exhibition at Paris in 1900 was far more detailed and there he displayed for the first time his method of hardness determination using a steel-ball indenter. For these contributions he was awarded the French Grand Prix and also the Polhem Prize of the Swedish Technical Society.He was later concerned with evaluating and developing the iron-ore deposits of north Sweden and was one of the pioneers of the electric blast-furnace. In 1903 he became Chief Engineer of the Jernkontoret and remained there until 1914. In this capacity and as Editor of the Jernkontorets Annaler he made significant contributions to Swedish metallurgy. His pioneer work on abrasion resistance, undertaken long before the term tribology had been invented, gained him the Rinman Medal, awarded by the Jernkontoret in 1920.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember of the Swedish Academy of Science 1902. Dr Honoris Causa, University of Upsala 1907. French Grand Prix, Paris World Exhibition 1900; Swedish Technical Society Polhem Prize 1900; Iron and Steel Institute Bessemer Medal 1907; Jernkontorets Rinman Medal 1920.Further ReadingAxel Wahlberg, 1901, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 59:243 (the first English-language description of the Brinell Hardness Test).Machinery's Encyclopedia, 1917, Vol. III, New York: Industrial Press, pp. 527–40 (a very readable account of the Brinell test in relation to the other hardness tests available at the beginning of the twentieth century).Hardness Test Research Committee, 1916, Bibliography on hardness testing, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.ASD -
24 Adamson, Daniel
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Metallurgy, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1818 Shildon, Co. Durham, Englandd. January 1890 Didsbury, Manchester, England[br]English mechanical engineer, pioneer in the use of steel for boilers, which enabled higher pressures to be introduced; pioneer in the use of triple-and quadruple-expansion mill engines.[br]Adamson was apprenticed between 1835 and 1841 to Timothy Hackworth, then Locomotive Superintendent on the Stockton \& Darlington Railway. After this he was appointed Draughtsman, then Superintendent Engineer, at that railway's locomotive works until in 1847 he became Manager of Shildon Works. In 1850 he resigned and moved to act as General Manager of Heaton Foundry, Stockport. In the following year he commenced business on his own at Newton Moor Iron Works near Manchester, where he built up his business as an iron-founder and boilermaker. By 1872 this works had become too small and he moved to a 4 acre (1.6 hectare) site at Hyde Junction, Dukinfield. There he employed 600 men making steel boilers, heavy machinery including mill engines fitted with the American Wheelock valve gear, hydraulic plant and general millwrighting. His success was based on his early recognition of the importance of using high-pressure steam and steel instead of wrought iron. In 1852 he patented his type of flanged seam for the firetubes of Lancashire boilers, which prevented these tubes cracking through expansion. In 1862 he patented the fabrication of boilers by drilling rivet holes instead of punching them and also by drilling the holes through two plates held together in their assembly positions. He had started to use steel for some boilers he made for railway locomotives in 1857, and in 1860, only four years after Bessemer's patent, he built six mill engine boilers from steel for Platt Bros, Oldham. He solved the problems of using this new material, and by his death had made c.2,800 steel boilers with pressures up to 250 psi (17.6 kg/cm2).He was a pioneer in the general introduction of steel and in 1863–4 was a partner in establishing the Yorkshire Iron and Steel Works at Penistone. This was the first works to depend entirely upon Bessemer steel for engineering purposes and was later sold at a large profit to Charles Cammell \& Co., Sheffield. When he started this works, he also patented improvements both to the Bessemer converters and to the engines which provided their blast. In 1870 he helped to turn Lincolnshire into an important ironmaking area by erecting the North Lincolnshire Ironworks. He was also a shareholder in ironworks in South Wales and Cumberland.He contributed to the development of the stationary steam engine, for as early as 1855 he built one to run with a pressure of 150 psi (10.5 kg/cm) that worked quite satisfactorily. He reheated the steam between the cylinders of compound engines and then in 1861–2 patented a triple-expansion engine, followed in 1873 by a quadruple-expansion one to further economize steam. In 1858 he developed improved machinery for testing tensile strength and compressive resistance of materials, and in the same year patents for hydraulic lifting jacks and riveting machines were obtained.He was a founding member of the Iron and Steel Institute and became its President in 1888 when it visited Manchester. The previous year he had been President of the Institution of Civil Engineers when he was presented with the Bessemer Gold Medal. He was a constant contributor at the meetings of these associations as well as those of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He did not live to see the opening of one of his final achievements, the Manchester Ship Canal. He was the one man who, by his indomitable energy and skill at public speaking, roused the enthusiasm of the people in Manchester for this project and he made it a really practical proposition in the face of strong opposition.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Institution of Civil Engineers 1887.President, Iron and Steel Institute 1888. Institution of Civil Engineers Bessemer Gold Medal 1887.Further ReadingObituary, Engineer 69:56.Obituary, Engineering 49:66–8.Obituary, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 100:374–8.H.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (provides an illustration of Adamson's flanged seam for boilers).R.L.Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (covers the development of the triple-expansion engine).RLH -
25 Churchward, George Jackson
[br]b. 31 January 1857 Stoke Gabriel, Devon, Englandd. 19 December 1933 Swindon, Wiltshire, England[br]English mechanical engineer who developed for the Great Western Railway a range of steam locomotives of the most advanced design of its time.[br]Churchward was articled to the Locomotive Superintendent of the South Devon Railway in 1873, and when the South Devon was absorbed by the Great Western Railway in 1876 he moved to the latter's Swindon works. There he rose by successive promotions to become Works Manager in 1896, and in 1897 Chief Assistant to William Dean, who was Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Superintendent, in which capacity Churchward was allowed extensive freedom of action. Churchward eventually succeeded Dean in 1902: his title changed to Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1916.In locomotive design, Churchward adopted the flat-topped firebox invented by A.J.Belpaire of the Belgian State Railways and added a tapered barrel to improve circulation of water between the barrel and the firebox legs. He designed valves with a longer stroke and a greater lap than usual, to achieve full opening to exhaust. Passenger-train weights had been increasing rapidly, and Churchward produced his first 4–6– 0 express locomotive in 1902. However, he was still developing the details—he had a flair for selecting good engineering practices—and to aid his development work Churchward installed at Swindon in 1904 a stationary testing plant for locomotives. This was the first of its kind in Britain and was based on the work of Professor W.F.M.Goss, who had installed the first such plant at Purdue University, USA, in 1891. For comparison with his own locomotives Churchward obtained from France three 4–4–2 compound locomotives of the type developed by A. de Glehn and G. du Bousquet. He decided against compounding, but he did perpetuate many of the details of the French locomotives, notably the divided drive between the first and second pairs of driving wheels, when he introduced his four-cylinder 4–6–0 (the Star class) in 1907. He built a lone 4–6–2, the Great Bear, in 1908: the wheel arrangement enabled it to have a wide firebox, but the type was not perpetuated because Welsh coal suited narrow grates and 4–6–0 locomotives were adequate for the traffic. After Churchward retired in 1921 his successor, C.B.Collett, was to enlarge the Star class into the Castle class and then the King class, both 4–6–0s, which lasted almost as long as steam locomotives survived in service. In Church ward's time, however, the Great Western Railway was the first in Britain to adopt six-coupled locomotives on a large scale for passenger trains in place of four-coupled locomotives. The 4–6–0 classes, however, were but the most celebrated of a whole range of standard locomotives of advanced design for all types of traffic and shared between them many standardized components, particularly boilers, cylinders and valve gear.[br]Further ReadingH.C.B.Rogers, 1975, G.J.Churchward. A Locomotive Biography, London: George Allen \& Unwin (a full-length account of Churchward and his locomotives, and their influence on subsequent locomotive development).C.Hamilton Ellis, 1958, Twenty Locomotive Men, Shepperton: Ian Allan, Ch. 20 (a good brief account).Sir William Stanier, 1955, "George Jackson Churchward", Transactions of the NewcomenSociety 30 (a unique insight into Churchward and his work, from the informed viewpoint of his former subordinate who had risen to become Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland \& Scottish Railway).PJGRBiographical history of technology > Churchward, George Jackson
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26 Herbert, Edward Geisler
[br]b. 23 March 1869 Dedham, near Colchester, Essex, Englandd. 9 February 1938 West Didsbury, Manchester, England[br]English engineer, inventor of the Rapidor saw and the Pendulum Hardness Tester, and pioneer of cutting tool research.[br]Edward Geisler Herbert was educated at Nottingham High School in 1876–87, and at University College, London, in 1887–90, graduating with a BSc in Physics in 1889 and remaining for a further year to take an engineering course. He began his career as a premium apprentice at the Nottingham works of Messrs James Hill \& Co, manufacturers of lace machinery. In 1892 he became a partner with Charles Richardson in the firm of Richardson \& Herbert, electrical engineers in Manchester, and when this partnership was dissolved in 1895 he carried on the business in his own name and began to produce machine tools. He remained as Managing Director of this firm, reconstituted in 1902 as a limited liability company styled Edward G.Herbert Ltd, until his retirement in 1928. He was joined by Charles Fletcher (1868–1930), who as joint Managing Director contributed greatly to the commercial success of the firm, which specialized in the manufacture of small machine tools and testing machinery.Around 1900 Herbert had discovered that hacksaw machines cut very much quicker when only a few teeth are in operation, and in 1902 he patented a machine which utilized this concept by automatically changing the angle of incidence of the blade as cutting proceeded. These saws were commercially successful, but by 1912, when his original patents were approaching expiry, Herbert and Fletcher began to develop improved methods of applying the rapid-saw concept. From this work the well-known Rapidor and Manchester saws emerged soon after the First World War. A file-testing machine invented by Herbert before the war made an autographic record of the life and performance of the file and brought him into close contact with the file and tool steel manufacturers of Sheffield. A tool-steel testing machine, working like a lathe, was introduced when high-speed steel had just come into general use, and Herbert became a prominent member of the Cutting Tools Research Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1919, carrying out many investigations for that body and compiling four of its Reports published between 1927 and 1933. He was the first to conceive the idea of the "tool-work" thermocouple which allowed cutting tool temperatures to be accurately measured. For this advance he was awarded the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal of the Institution in 1926.His best-known invention was the Pendulum Hardness Tester, introduced in 1923. This used a spherical indentor, which was rolled over, rather than being pushed into, the surface being examined, by a small, heavy, inverted pendulum. The period of oscillation of this pendulum provided a sensitive measurement of the specimen's hardness. Following this work Herbert introduced his "Cloudburst" surface hardening process, in which hardened steel engineering components were bombarded by steel balls moving at random in all directions at very high velocities like gaseous molecules. This treatment superhardened the surface of the components, improved their resistance to abrasion, and revealed any surface defects. After bombardment the hardness of the superficially hardened layers increased slowly and spontaneously by a room-temperature ageing process. After his retirement in 1928 Herbert devoted himself to a detailed study of the influence of intense magnetic fields on the hardening of steels.Herbert was a member of several learned societies, including the Manchester Association of Engineers, the Institute of Metals, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He retained a seat on the Board of his company from his retirement until the end of his life.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsManchester Association of Engineers Butterworth Gold Medal 1923. Institution of Mechanical Engineers Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal 1926.BibliographyE.G.Herbert obtained several British and American patents and was the author of many papers, which are listed in T.M.Herbert (ed.), 1939, "The inventions of Edward Geisler Herbert: an autobiographical note", Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 141: 59–67.ASD / RTSBiographical history of technology > Herbert, Edward Geisler
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27 Kennedy, Sir Alexander Blackie William
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 17 March 1847 Stepney, London, England d. 1928[br]English marine engineer and educator.[br]Sir Alexander Kennedy was trained as a marine engineer. The son of a Congregational minister, he was educated at the City of London School and the School of Mines, Jermyn Street. He was then apprenticed to J. \& W.Dudgeon of Millwall, marine engineers, and went on to become a draughtsman to Sir Charles Marsh Palmer of Jarrow (with whom he took part in the development of the compound steam-engine for marine use) and T.M.Tennant \& Co. of Leith. In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Engineering at University College, London. He built up an influential School of Engineering, being the first in England to integrate laboratory work as a regular feature of instruction. The engineering laboratory that he established in 1878 has been described as "the first of its kind in England" (Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers). He and his students conducted important experiments on the strength and elasticity of materials, boiler testing and related subjects. He followed the teaching of Franz Reuleaux, whose Kinematics of Machinery he translated from the German.While thus breaking new educational ground at University College, Kennedy concurrently established a very thriving private practice as a consulting engineer in partnership with Bernard Maxwell Jenkin (the son of Fleeming Jenkin), to pursue which he relinquished his academic posts in 1889. He planned and installed the whole electricity system for the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation, and other electricity companies. He was also heavily involved in the development of electrically powered transport systems. During the First World War he served on a panel of the Munitions Invention Department, and after the war he undertook to record photographically the scenes of desolation in his book From Ypres to Verdun (1921). Towards the end of his life, he pursued his interest in archaeology with the exploration of Petra, recorded in a monograph: Petra. Its History and Monuments (1925). He also joined the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1879, becoming the President of that body in 1894, and he joined the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1890. Kennedy was thus something of an engineering polymath, as well as being an outstanding engineering educationalist.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1887. Knighted 1905. Member, Institution of Civil Engineers 1879; President, 1906. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1894.Bibliography1921, From Ypresto Verdum.1925, Petra. Its History and Monuments.Further ReadingDNB supplement.1928–9, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 221:269–75.ABBiographical history of technology > Kennedy, Sir Alexander Blackie William
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28 Blumlein, Alan Dower
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Photography, film and optics, Recording, Telecommunications[br]b. 29 June 1903 Hampstead, London, Englandd. 7 June 1942[br]English electronics engineer, developer of telephone equipment, highly linear electromechanical recording and reproduction equipment, stereo techniques, video and radar technology.[br]He was a very bright scholar and received a BSc in electrical technology from City and Guilds College in 1923. He joined International Western Electric (later to become Standard Telephone and Cables) in 1924 after a period as an instructor/demonstrator at City and Guilds. He was instrumental in the design of telephone measuring equipment and in international committee work for standards for long-distance telephony.From 1929 Blumlein was employed by the Columbia Graphophone Company to develop an electric recording cutterhead that would be independent of Western Electric's patents for the system developed by Maxfield and Harrison. He attacked the problems in a most systematic fashion, and within a year he had developed a moving-coil cutterhead that was much more linear than the iron-cored systems known at the time. Eventually Blumlein designed a complete line of recording equipment, from microphone and through-power amplifiers. The design was used by Columbia; after the merger with the Gramophone Company in 1931 to form Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd (later known as EMI) it became the company standard, certainly for coarse-groove records, until c.1950.Blumlein became interested in stereophony (binaural sound), and developed and demonstrated a complete line of equipment, from correctly placed microphones via two-channel records and stereo pick-ups to correctly placed loudspeakers. The advent of silent surfaces of vinyl records made this approach commercial from the late 1950s. His approach was independent and quite different from that of A.C. Keller.His extreme facility for creating innovative solutions to electronic problems was used in EMI's development from 1934 to 1938 of the electronic television system, which became the BBC standard of 405 lines after the Second World War, when television broadcasting again became possible. Independent of official requirements, EMI developed a 60 MHz radar system and Blumlein was involved in the development of a centimetric radar and display system. It was during testing of this aircraft mounted equipment that he was killed in a crash.[br]BibliographyBlumlein was inventor or co-inventor of well over 120 patents, a complete list of which is to be found in Burns (1992; see below). The major sound-recording achievements are documented by British patent nos. 350,954, 350,998, 363,627 (highly linear cutterhead, 1930) and 394,325 (reads like a textbook on stereo technology, 1931).Further ReadingThe definitive biography of Blumlein has not yet been written; the material seems to have been collected, but is not yet available. However, R.W.Burns, 1992, "A.D.Blumlein, engineer extraordinary", Engineering Science and Education Journal (February): 19– 33 is a thorough account. Also B.J.Benzimra, 1967, "A.D. Blumlein: an electronics genius", Electronics \& Power (June): 218–24 provides an interesting summary.GB-N -
29 Versuchsabteilung
Versuchsabteilung f V&M research department* * *f <V&M> research department* * *Versuchsabteilung
experimental (research) department;
• Versuchsanlage research (pilot) plant;
• Versuchsanordnung (Statistik) design;
• Versuchsanstalt research (experimental) institute;
• Versuchsauftrag trial order;
• Versuchsaufwand experimental expense, research expenditure;
• auf Versuchsbasis on a pilot scale;
• Versuchsbetrieb pilot plant;
• spekulative Versuchsbohrung wildcat;
• Versuchsergebnisse research material, test results;
• Versuchsfabrik research (pilot) plant;
• Versuchsfahrt (Auto) trial run, (Schiff) trial trip;
• Versuchsfarm experimental farm;
• Versuchsfehler experimental error;
• Versuchsfeld proving ground;
• Versuchsfeldzug test (tryout, US) campaign;
• Versuchsgelände trial (proving) ground, test site;
• Versuchsgruppe experimental (research) group;
• Versuchsgut experimental (pilot) farm;
• Versuchsingenieur research engineer;
• Versuchsjahr experimental year;
• Versuchskampagne test (tryout, US) campaign;
• Versuchskaninchen guinea-pig (Br.);
• Versuchslaboratorium research laboratory;
• Versuchsmarkt (Werbung) test market;
• Versuchsmodell working (experimental) model;
• Versuchsmuster experimental type;
• Versuchsobjekt test object;
• betrieblicher Versuchsplan factorial design;
• Versuchsproduktion pilot production;
• Versuchsprogramm pilot program(me);
• Versuchsprojekt pilot scheme (project);
• Versuchsprozess test case;
• Versuchsserie pilot (test) series (lot);
• Versuchsstadium experimental stage;
• noch in einem Versuchsstadium stecken to be in a tentative stage;
• Versuchsstation research plant, experimental station (US);
• Versuchsstraße experimental road;
• Versuchstier laboratory animal;
• Versuchswerbung advertising test;
• Versuchswerte test data;
• Versuchszeit testing period. -
30 испытания в условиях эксплуатации
1. field test2. field testingРусско-английский большой базовый словарь > испытания в условиях эксплуатации
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31 Braun, Wernher Manfred von
[br]b. 23 March 1912 Wirsitz, Germanyd. 16 June 1977 Alexandria, Virginia, USA[br]German pioneer in rocket development.[br]Von Braun's mother was an amateur astronomer who introduced him to the futuristic books of Jules Verne and H.G.Wells and gave him an astronomical telescope. He was a rather slack and undisciplined schoolboy until he came across Herman Oberth's book By Rocket to Interplanetary Space. He discovered that he required a good deal of mathematics to follow this exhilarating subject and immediately became an enthusiastic student.The Head of the Ballistics and Armaments branch of the German Army, Professor Karl Becker, had asked the engineer Walter Dornberger to develop a solid-fuel rocket system for short-range attack, and one using liquid-fuel rockets to carry bigger loads of explosives beyond the range of any known gun. Von Braun joined the Verein für Raumschiffsfahrt (the German Space Society) as a young man and soon became a leading member. He was asked by Rudolf Nebel, VfR's chief, to persuade the army of the value of rockets as weapons. Von Braun wisely avoided all mention of the possibility of space flight and some financial backing was assured. Dornberger in 1932 built a small test stand for liquid-fuel rockets and von Braun built a small rocket to test it; the success of this trial won over Dornberger to space rocketry.Initially research was carried out at Kummersdorf, a suburb of Berlin, but it was decided that this was not a suitable site. Von Braun recalled holidays as a boy at a resort on the Baltic, Peenemünde, which was ideally suited to rocket testing. Work started there but was not completed until August 1939, when the group of eighty engineers and scientists moved in. A great fillip to rocket research was received when Hitler was shown a film and was persuaded of the efficacy of rockets as weapons of war. A factory was set up in excavated tunnels at Mittelwerk in the Harz mountains. Around 6,000 "vengeance" weapons were built, some 3,000 of which were fired on targets in Britain and 2,000 of which were still in storage at the end of the Second World War.Peenemünde was taken by the Russians on 5 May 1945, but by then von Braun was lodging with many of his colleagues at an inn, Haus Ingeburg, near Oberjoch. They gave themselves up to the Americans, and von Braun presented a "prospectus" to the Americans, pointing out how useful the German rocket team could be. In "Operation Paperclip" some 100 of the team were moved to the United States, together with tons of drawings and a number of rocket missiles. Von Braun worked from 1946 at the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, and in 1950 moved to Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama. In 1953 he produced the Redstone missile, in effect a V2 adapted to carry a nuclear warhead a distance of 320 km (199 miles). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed in 1958 and recruited von Braun and his team. He was responsible for the design of the Redstone launch vehicles which launched the first US satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958, and the Mercury capsules of the US manned spaceflight programme which carried Alan Shepard briefly into space in 1961 and John Glenn into earth orbit in 1962. He was also responsible for the Saturn series of large, staged launch vehicles, which culminated in the Saturn V rocket which launched the Apollo missions taking US astronauts for the first human landing on the moon in 1969. Von Braun announced his resignation from NASA in 1972 and died five years later.[br]Bibliography1981, with F.L.Ordway, History of Rocketry and Space TravelFurther ReadingP.Marsh, 1985, The Space Business, Penguin. J.Trux, 1985, The Space Race, New English Library. T.Osman, 1983, Space History, Michael Joseph.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Braun, Wernher Manfred von
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32 Halske, Johann Georg
[br]b. 30 July 1814 Hamburg, Germanyd. 18 March 1890 Berlin, Germany[br]German engineer who introduced precision methods into the manufacture of electrical equipment; co-founder of Siemens \& Halske.[br]Halske moved to Berlin when he was a young man, and in 1844 was working for the university, at first independently and then jointly with F. Bötticher, developing and building electric medical appliances. In 1845 he met Werner von Siemens and together they became founder members of the Berlin Physics Society. It was in Halske's workshop that Siemens, assisted by the skill of the former, was able to work out his inventions in telegraphy. In 1847 the two men entered into partnership to manufacture telegraph equipment, laying the foundations of the successful firm of Siemens \& Halske. At the outset, before Werner von Siemens gave up his army career, Halske acted as the sole manager of the firm and was also involved in testing the products. Inventions they developed included electric measuring instruments and railway signalling equipment, and they installed many telegraph lines, notably those for the Russian Government. When gutta-percha became available on the market, the two men soon developed an extrusion process for applying this new material to copper conductors. To the disappointment of Halske, who was opposed to mass production, the firm introduced series production and piece wages in 1857. The expansion of the business, particularly into submarine cable laying, caused some anxiety to Halske, who left the firm on amicable terms in 1867. He then worked for a few years developing the Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin and became a town councillor.[br]Further ReadingS. von Weihr and H.Götzeler, 1983, The Siemens Company. Its Historical Role in the Progress of Electrical Engineering 1847–1983, Berlin (provides a full account).Neue Deutsche Biographie, 1966, Vol. 7, Berlin, pp. 572–3.S.von Weiher, 1972–3, "The Siemens brothers, pioneers of the electrical age in Europe", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 45:1–11.GW -
33 Napier, Robert
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 18 June 1791 Dumbarton, Scotlandd. 23 June 1876 Shandon, Dunbartonshire, Scotland[br]Scottish shipbuilder one of the greatest shipbuilders of all time, known as the "father" of Clyde shipbuilding.[br]Educated at Dumbarton Grammar School, Robert Napier had been destined for the Church but persuaded his father to let him serve an apprenticeship as a blacksmith under him. For a while he worked in Edinburgh, but then in 1815 he commenced business in Glasgow, the city that he served for the rest of his life. Initially his workshop was in Camlachie, but it was moved in 1836 to a riverside factory site at Lancefield in the heart of the City and again in 1841 to the Old Shipyard in the Burgh of Govan (then independent of the City of Glasgow). The business expanded through his preparedness to build steam machinery, beginning in 1823 with the engines for the paddle steamer Leven, still to be seen a few hundred metres from Napier's grave in Dumbarton. His name assured owners of quality, and business expanded after two key orders: one in 1836 for the Honourable East India Company; and the second two years later for the Royal Navy, hitherto the preserve of the Royal Dockyards and of the shipbuilders of south-east England. Napier's shipyard and engine shops, then known as Robert Napier and Sons, were to be awarded sixty Admiralty contracts in his lifetime, with a profound influence on ship and engine procurement for the Navy and on foreign governments, which for the first time placed substantial work in the United Kingdom.Having had problems with hull subcontractors and also with the installation of machinery in wooden hulls, in 1843 Napier ventured into shipbuilding with the paddle steamer Vanguard, which was built of iron. The following year the Royal Navy took delivery of the iron-hulled Jackall, enabling Napier to secure the contract for the Black Prince, Britain's second ironclad and sister ship to HMS Warrior now preserved at Portsmouth. With so much work in iron Napier instigated studies into metallurgy, and the published work of David Kirkaldy bears witness to his open-handedness in assisting the industry. This service to industry was even more apparent in 1866 when the company laid out the Skelmorlie Measured Mile on the Firth of Clyde for ship testing, a mile still in use by ships of all nations.The greatest legacy of Robert Napier was his training of young engineers, shipbuilders and naval architects. Almost every major Scottish shipyard, and some English too, was influenced by him and many of his early foremen left to set up rival establishments along the banks of the River Clyde. His close association with Samuel Cunard led to the setting up of the company now known as the Cunard Line. Napier designed and engined the first four ships, subcontracting the hulls of this historic quartet to other shipbuilders on the river. While he contributed only 2 per cent to the equity of the shipping line, they came back to him for many more vessels, including the magnificent paddle ship Persia, of 1855.It is an old tradition on the Clyde that the smokestacks of ships are made by the enginebuilders. The Cunard Line still uses red funnels with black bands, Napier's trademark, in honour of the engineer who set them going.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnight Commander of the Dannebrog (Denmark). President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1864. Honorary Member of the Glasgow Society of Engineers 1869.Further ReadingJames Napier, 1904, The Life of Robert Napier, Edinburgh, Blackwood.J.M.Halliday, 1980–1, "Robert Napier. The father of Clyde shipbuilding", Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland 124.Fred M.Walker, 1984, Song of the Clyde. A History of Clyde Shipbuilding, Cambridge: PSL.FMW -
34 Taylor, William
[br]b. 11 June 1865 London, Englandd. 28 February 1937 Laughton, Leicestershire, England[br]English mechanical engineer and metrologist, originator of standard screw threads for lens mountings and inventor of "Dimple" golf balls.[br]William Taylor served an apprenticeship from 1880 to 1885 in London with Paterson and Cooper, electrical engineers and instrument makers. He studied at the Finsbury Technical College under Professors W.E.Ayrton (1847–1908) and John Perry (1850–1920). He remained with Paterson and Cooper until 1887, when he joined his elder brother, who had set up in Leicester as a manufacturer of optical instruments. The firm was then styled T.S. \& W.Taylor and a few months later, when H.W.Hobson joined them as a partner, it became Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, as it was known for many years.William Taylor was mainly responsible for technical developments in the firm and he designed the special machine tools required for making lenses and their mountings. However, his most notable work was in originating methods of measuring and gauging screw threads. He proposed a standard screw-thread for lens mountings that was adopted by the Royal Photographic Society, and he served on screw thread committees of the British Standards Institution and the British Association. His interest in golf led him to study the flight of the golf ball, and he designed and patented the "Dimple" golf ball and a mechanical driving machine for testing golf balls.He was an active member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, being elected Associate Member in 1894, Member in 1901 and Honorary Life Member in 1936. He served on the Council from 1918 and was President in 1932. He took a keen interest in engineering education and advocated the scientific study of materials, processes and machine tools, and of management. His death occurred suddenly while he was helping to rescue his son's car from a snowdrift.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsOBE 1918. FRS 1934. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1932.Further ReadingK.J.Hume, 1980, A History of Engineering Metrology, London, 110–21 (a short account of William Taylor and of Taylor, Taylor and Hobson).RTS -
35 Tideman, Bruno Joannes
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 7 August 1834 Amsterdam, The Netherlandsd. 11 February 1883 Amsterdam, The Netherlands[br]Dutch naval architect and constructor, early hydrodyna midst.[br]The first thirty years of Tideman's life followed the normal pattern for a naval architect: study at the Breda Military Academy, work in the Royal Dockyards of Vlissingen as a constructor and then experience in the United Kingdom "standing by" an armoured vessel being built for the Dutch at Birkenhead. Tideman took the opportunity to acquaint himself with current developments in British shipyards and to study the work of Macquorn Rankine at Glasgow University.On his return to the Netherlands he was given the task of adapting the Royal Dockyard of Amsterdam for ironclad construction and from 1870 iron ships were built there. From 1868 until 1873 he taught shipbuilding at what was then the Delft Polytechnic, but resigned on his appointment as Chief Naval Constructor of Holland.Through representations to appropriate authority he assisted in founding the great shipyard Koninklijke Maatschappij "De Schelde" and in the setting up of Dutch ferry services across the North Sea. His interest in ship design and in the pioneering work of William Froude led to the founding of the world's second ship model test tank in 1876 in a sheltered part of the Royal Amsterdam Dockyard. The design was based on Froude's Torquay Tank.As Scotland's first tank was not opened until 1883, he attracted work from the Clyde, including the testing of the Russian Imperial Yacht Livadia built by Elder's of Glasgow. This contract was so critical that it was agreed that a quartersize model be tested on Loch Lomond. Throughout his life he was respected as an all-round engineer and consultancy work flowed in, the vast bulk of it from Britain. Continual trying to improve standards, Tideman was working on a development plan for Dutch shipbuilding at the time of his death.[br]Further ReadingJ.M.Dirkzwager, 1970, Bruno Joannes Tideman 1834–1883. Grondlegger van de Moderne Scheepsbouw in Nederland, Leiden.FMW -
36 опытная эксплуатация
Русско-английский военно-политический словарь > опытная эксплуатация
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37 испытание в условиях вакуума
Авиация и космонавтика. Русско-английский словарь > испытание в условиях вакуума
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