Gustav Bauer (mechanical engineer)

Gustav Bauer (around 1900)

Invitation card to participate in the test run of the passenger ship Germany on June 2, 1900

Gustav Bauer , also Gustav Bauer-Schlichtegroll , (born December 1, 1871 in Munich , † December 6, 1953 in Hamburg ) was a German mechanical engineer who emerged as a designer of prime movers for high-speed steamers .

School and education

He was born the son of the mathematics professor Gustav Bauer senior and his wife Amalie Bauer nee von Schlichtegroll . After graduating from a humanistic grammar school in Munich (1888), he began studying medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In 1890 he moved to the Technical University of Munich and completed a degree in mechanical engineering, which he completed in 1894 with the academic degree of graduate engineer . In 1895 he received his doctorate - Dr. phil. , since the degree of doctoral engineer in the Kingdom of Bavaria was only introduced in January 1901.

Bauer as an engineer

He began his professional career in April 1895 as a machine assistant on ships belonging to the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company . In October 1895 he switched to the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin-Bredow as a volunteer . At that time, this shipyard was the most important shipbuilding and mechanical engineering company in the German Empire, where Kaiser Wilhelm der Große was founded in 1897 and was the first German ship to be awarded the Blue Ribbon . Soon after, Bauer worked as a designer, in 1902 he was appointed chief engineer and in 1906 he became deputy to the mechanical engineering director Justus Flohr . In 1908 there was a change to Vulcan-Zweigbetrieb AG Vulcan Hamburg , which was founded in 1905 as a large shipyard for the construction of the largest ships of the time and started operations in mid-1909. In 1911 he was appointed mechanical engineering director in Stettin and Hamburg as Flohr's successor. He held these functions until 1926. With the integration of the Vulkan shipyards into Deschimag , a merger of eight North German shipyards, he moved his professional activity to Bremen to AG Weser . There he was appointed technical director general by this company in 1927 and became a member of the board of directors. Here he took over the management of the design, construction and construction of the entire boiler and machine system of the express steamer Bremen , which won the Blue Ribbon on its first voyage after commissioning in 1929.

In the following years he played a key role in the development of high-pressure steam systems, which were implemented on the East Asia ships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst of AG Weser. These ships and used in the same trading area Potsdam from the Hamburg shipyard Blohm & Voss were the first merchant ships in the world on which to drive high-pressure steam plants with once-through boilers of the type Benson were used. This technology was then transferred to naval ships from other German shipyards and was in competition with double-acting diesel engines, which had a lower specific fuel consumption. The appointment as general director of Deschimag meant that in addition to mechanical engineering, shipbuilding was also subordinated to him.

In 1946 he left the board of directors of Deschimag / AG Weser, but remained a technical consultant with the company until his death.

Bauer as a scientist

In the various professional functions he found time for scientific research, and so many publications in the form of articles or books were created.

Some of this knowledge has been patented and some have been implemented very successfully in practice. A good example of this is the development and construction of the Bauer-Wach exhaust steam turbine . Turbines according to this system use the pressure difference from the remaining steam pressure of the low-pressure cylinder of the steam engine and the negative pressure of the condenser . This principle has significantly improved the efficiency of the piston steam engine . He promoted Hermann Föttinger , the developer of the Föttinger gearbox, and was involved in the decoupling of vibrations ( Föttinger coupling ), which were protected by many joint patents. Many companies, including foreign ones, that were involved in the construction of marine machinery became licensees of the Szczecin Vulcan and its legal successors. But Föttinger gears and especially Föttinger clutches were also used in locomotives, trucks and other applications.

In 1902, Bauer published a manual for calculating marine machinery and boilers, which grew into a four-volume work by 1927. Under the name Der Schiffsmaschinenbau, it developed into the standard work of shipyards, shipping companies and the mechanical engineering companies of the shipyard supply industry. Before the Association of German Engineers (VDI) and the Shipbuilding Society (STG), he reported several times in important specialist lectures on his innovative technical development work. He was a member of the STG board for many years.

From 1926 to 1937, Bauer taught as an honorary professor for marine engineering at Faculty III for mechanical engineering, specialist department for ship and marine engineering, at the Technical University of Berlin .

Ships

Bremen

• Imperator , later RMS Berengaria , at AG Vulcan Hamburg built
• Kaiser Wilhelm II. , Won the Blue Ribbon in 1906
• Crown Princess Cecilia , in the AG Vulcan Stettin constructed
• Bremen , won the Blue Ribbon in 1929

Awards

The Shipbuilding Society awarded him the silver commemorative coin in 1916 and the golden commemorative coin in 1925, their highest honor.

Bauer received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Munich as Dr.-Ing. E. h. excellent.

On October 1, 1944, he was awarded the eagle shield of the German Empire with the embossing THE BIG / GERMAN SHIP / MACHINE BUILDER .

literature

• Heinz Conradis: Bauer, Johann Nathanael Gustav. In: Historical Society Bremen, State Archive Bremen (Ed.): Bremische Biographie 1912–1962. Hauschild, Bremen 1969, p. 26 (column 2) to p. 27 (column 2).
• Yearbook of the Shipbuilding Society 1953. Springer Verlag, Berlin et al. 1954.
• Eckhard Wendt: Stettiner life pictures. (= Publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania , Series V, Volume 40.) Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-412-09404-8 , pp. 48–50.
• Eike Lehmann: 100 Years of the Shipbuilding Society . Springer-Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 3-540-64150-5 , pp. 28-32 .

Web links

• Gustav Bauer in the Catalogus Professorum of the Technical University of Berlin
• Newspaper article about Gustav Bauer in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to the publication Stettiner Lebensbilder (cf. bibliography) he used the suffix -Schlichtegroll "after the death of his first wife", referring to his mother's family , but no reason is expressly given.