Adolf Meyer (engineer)

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Adolf Meyer (born October 27, 1880 in Bülach ; † November 10, 1965 in Küsnacht ) was a Swiss mechanical engineer with over 90 German imperial patents. He became known as the chief developer of the first commercially usable gas turbine .

Life

Adolf Meyer was born in Bülach in 1880 and grew up with a sister and a brother in Zurich. After an apprenticeship as a locksmith, he studied at the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum ( ETH ) from 1899 to 1903 , where he graduated with a diploma in electrical engineering. He accepted an assistant position at Professor Meyer-Schweizer and came into close contact with Professor Aurel Stodola .

After working briefly in Lisbon , London and Nuremberg , Meyer joined Brown, Boveri & Cie in April 1907 . (BBC) a. In 1909/10 he was chief engineer at Ludwig von Roll'schen Eisenwerke, in charge of the assembly of the blast furnace in Choindez ( Courrendlin municipality ) and returned to the BBC in the autumn. Successively he was there head of the department for capacitors, chief engineer of the department for steam turbines and from April 1923 to 1946 director of the thermal department. He is responsible for a large number of studies on improvements to steam turbines up to and including the 165 MW large turbine delivered to America in 1929 for the Hellgate headquarters of the New York Edison Company .

Since the end of the 19th century, many companies had tried to find solutions for usable gas turbines . In 1903, for example, the first edition of Stodola's standard work “About Steam and Gas Turbines” appeared and in 1905 Hans Holzwarth developed a discontinuously working “deflagration gas turbine”.

From 1928, Adolf Meyer ordered the BBC to make massive use of the commercial implementation of gas turbines. First, axial compressors were developed according to the latest knowledge. He also took advantage of the advances in metallurgy, which made it possible to put high mechanical loads on paddle wheels that were heated to the point of red heat. In 1939 the BBC was able to present the world's first market-ready industrial gas turbine . This gas turbine for the energy supply of the city of Neuchâtel had an output of 4 MW with an efficiency of 17.4% and replaced a peak load steam turbine. The Neuchâtel gas turbine was in operation from 1939 to 2002 as the city's emergency power unit. It has been on view as a restored exhibit on the Alstom company premises in Birr since 2006 .

In addition, Adolf Meyer was involved in the development of locomotive gas turbines and built prototypes for Switzerland and Great Britain. In 1940 he was able to board the “world's first gas turbine locomotive ”, which he designed for the SBB , as a train driver. Engineer Noack, one of his employees, developed the Velox boiler.

He was elected to the BBC Board of Directors, where he served for 11 years. In 1935 the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken (New Jersey) awarded him an honorary doctorate, as did the ETH in 1941. He has twice received the George Stephenson Medal from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London for the best achievement of the year in the field of mechanical engineering, and since 1950 he has been an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

In 1965 he died in his house "Zur Haab" in Küsnacht on Lake Zurich. He was married and had two sons.

Honors

  • 1935: Honorary Doctorate from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey
  • 1941: Honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich

literature

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss engineer
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Bulach
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1965
Place of death Küsnacht