Alfred Collmann

Alfred Collmann (born April 17, 1851 in Vienna ; † April 7, 1937 there ) was an Austrian mechanical engineer .

Life

Alfred Collmann was an engineer in Vienna from 1881. Later he was an independent entrepreneur. Collmann's house at Reisnerstrasse 30 was built around 1893 by the architect Heinz Gerl . Collmann won the Grand Prix at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 . In 1931 he became Honorary Doctor of the Technical University in Vienna. In 1974 the Collmanngasse in Vienna- Favoriten was named after him.

meaning

Alfred Collmann invented the first inevitable control for piston steam engines in 1876 , which became known as the Collmann control , and which he modified in 1891. The Collmann control was built by the Görlitzer Maschinenbauanstalt, which had great success with it.

The way this control works can be described as follows: Two movements are derived from the inlet eccentric. The lower rod is the same as the valve movement at maximum filling, the upper rod, on the other hand, can be moved in a sleeve depending on the controller and engages in the center of a toggle lever within the frame-shaped valve spindle. The more the toggle lever moves out of its stretched position when the regulator deflects strongly, the more the lever system is shortened and thus the valve opening time.

As early as 1877, Collmann supplemented his invention with roller levers connected downstream of the toggle levers, which make the valve movements smoother. The Görlitzer Maschinenbauanstalt built a steam engine modified in this way in 1880. In 1891 Collmann developed a further inevitable valve control, which was supplemented by vibrating thumbs and axis controllers. His first release control with an oil buffer was patented in 1892.

(The technical information is taken from the website albert-gieseler.de about steam engines.)

literature

• Steam engine . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, Volume 4, pp. 734–744 (here page 742).
• Collmann Alfred. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 151.
• Viktor Schützenhofer:  Collmann, Alfred. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 325 ( digitized version ).
• Felix Czeike: Historical Lexicon Vienna Vol. 1 . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1992

Web links

• Entry on Alfred Collmann in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Entry about Alfred Collmann in the database of the Wilhelm Exner Medal Foundation .
• albert-gieseler.de - website about steam engines