Albert Betz

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Albert Betz

Albert Betz (born December 25, 1885 in Schweinfurt , † April 16, 1968 in Göttingen ) was a German mechanical engineer , physicist and aerodynamicist . He created the basics of aerodynamics and wind energy .

Live and act

Betz's law : ideal performance coefficient (e.g. harvest rate of a wind turbine ) as a function of the relative residual speed x = v 2 / v 1 . The maximum is at x = 1/3 and is c P = 16/27.
Wind deflector developed by the aerodynamic research institute in the 1920s
Positive sweep of a wing

From 1911, Betz worked as a flow researcher at the Aerodynamic Research Institute in Göttingen. From 1926 he was a professor at the Georg-August University in Göttingen . From 1936 he headed the aerodynamic research institute as successor to Ludwig Prandtl . From 1947 to 1956 he was director of the Max Planck Institute for Fluid Dynamics .

In 1920 he published an article in the magazine for the entire turbine system , in which he demonstrated that a maximum of 59.3 percent of the currently available energy can be converted into mechanical power by a turbine-like, disk-shaped converter from the wind acting in one place . He expressed this in Betz's law . Another study from 1920 led to smoke deflectors for steam locomotives, which helped train drivers to see better. In 1925 he summarized the results of his work on this topic in the book Wind Energy and its Exploitation by Windmills and formulated his hydrofoil theory for the shape of rotor blades, which is still valid today .

With Kurt Bilau , he developed the aluminum vented blade . This is shaped like an airplane wing and has an auxiliary wing to control the speed and power of the windmill . Before 1920 he had worked with Ludwig Prandtl and Max Munk for about ten years . In 1939 he researched together with Ludwig Bölkow in the wind tunnel for Messerschmitt AG .

Together with Adolf Busemann , he designed the wing swept on airplanes close to the speed of sound. In 1942 he was granted the secret patent No. 732/42, valid from September 9, 1939, without announcement and without entry in the patent roll. All modern commercial aircraft today (2014) are designed according to this principle. The patent was later expanded and now also contained an "aircraft with a device for changing the wing sweep", that is, variable wing geometry, a principle that is used today in modern combat aircraft. Another extension of the patent now also included "wings with strong arrow positions".

In 1943 he was elected a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Since 1952 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

He was a great-nephew of Vladimir Betz (1834-1894), a Russian-Ukrainian anatomist and histologist .

Honors

Works

  • The maximum of the theoretically possible utilization of the wind by wind motors. Journal of All Turbines, September 20, 1920
  • Wind energy and its use by windmills. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1926, today available as an unchanged reprint, Ökobuch, Staufen, ISBN 3-922964-11-7
  • Compliant mapping. 1948, 1964
  • Introduction to the theory of fluid flow machines. Brown (1959)
  • Hydro- and aerodynamics. Verlag Chemie, 1953

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sven Grünewald: cradle of aviation research . In: Polygo Verlag GmbH & Regionalverband Südniedersachsen eV (Ed.): RegJo . No. 54 . Polygo Verlag GmbH, 2010, ISSN  1615-5696 , p. 28 .
  2. ↑ Wolf-Heinrich Hucho: Aerodynamics of the blunt body . Physical fundamentals and practical applications. Vieweg + Teubner, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-8348-1462-3 , pp. 307 .
  3. ↑ a b c Werner Heinzerling: Wing sweep and area rule - two basic German patents of aircraft aerodynamics . P. 6 ( PDF )
  4. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 39.
  5. ↑ member entry of Albert Betz in the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on January 3, 2017th
  6. ↑ Information from the Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Betz, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and pioneer of wind power technology
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Schweinfurt
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1968
Place of death Goettingen