Walter Douglas La Mont

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Walter Douglas La Mont (* 1889 in Niagara Falls , † January 19, 1942 in New York ) was an American pilot , marine engineer and inventor .

biography

La Mont was born in 1889, graduated from Niagara Falls High School in 1905, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1910 . During his studies at the Academy, he excelled in gymnastics and fencing competitions. After graduating, he commanded the torpedo boat destroyer USS Craven in 1912 . Then he was one of the early pilots in the US Navy and was involved in several missions. He was one of the four pilots who took part in the 1914 occupation of Vera Cruz . In 1916 he was transferred to the US naval base Guantanamo as commander of the gunboat USS Petrel , where he also spent the First World War and was involved in the closure of the port of Santiago when the USA entered the war . Two years later he was called back as a lecturer at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He was then stationed in China and the Philippines, among others. In 1924 he ended his naval career as Lieutenant Commander on a gunboat in order to have more time for the further development of his invention in the future. In New York he founded the La Mont Corporation for the development and construction of steam boilers . He died of a heart attack on January 19, 1942 and was buried with military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

La Mont was part of a long-established Niagara Falls family. He was the son of Walter Liewellyn La Mont and Mary Hulett La Mont. His grandfather, George D. La Mont, was appointed judge for the 8th judicial district of the Supreme Court of New York in 1865. On his mother's side, Walter E. Hulett, who was a member of the first board of directors of Niagara Falls, and Theodore G. Hulett, who was instrumental in building the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge , belonged to his family. He himself married Katharyne May Filkins on April 19, 1916. Both had three children, a son Walter John La Mont (* 1924), a daughter Sally La Mont (* August 4, 1917), the third died early as a result of a traffic accident.

Research activity and the La Mont cauldron

La Mont was temporarily active as a lecturer at the United States Naval Academy and worked in the research facility of the Naval Academy on the development of new boiler types for the US Navy. In this context, he optimized the forced circulation principle developed by Martin Benson in 1856 and applied for a patent in 1918. His invention used the pump-driven forced circulation to inject boiler feed water from above into vertical heating surfaces and thus generate an annular flow within the heating surface pipes . In this way, his steam generators could be designed with smaller pipe diameters and operated with less feed water, which significantly reduced their overall weight. La Mont itself envisaged the use of these boilers in aviation (see Besler aircraft ), but the so-called La Mont boilers became known in shipping and were used here because of their advantages, such as the compact design and the fast heating-up time and the higher pressures through quickly. The New York La Mont Corporation soon issued licenses to Europe, so that the boiler was built in Europe as early as 1930. The "Gesellschaft für La Mont Kessel und Kraftwirtschaft mbH" was founded in Berlin in 1929. It was here that the designs for the main ship boilers , but also for the exhaust gas boilers , which were connected downstream of the main diesel engines to utilize waste heat, were created. At the instigation of the High Command of the Navy , comparative studies of the La Mont boiler with the so-called Wagner boiler ( natural circulation ), with the Benson boiler ( forced flow ) and Velox boiler were carried out in the 1930s . And although some ships of the Admiral Hipper class and the two incomplete aircraft carriers Graf Zeppelin and aircraft carrier B were still equipped with La Mont boilers, from 1940 the Navy preferred the Wagner boiler almost exclusively because of its simpler construction, easier operation and better maintenance options.

Despite its advantages , the La Mont boiler was not used in the American Navy before the Second World War . This was also a reason for La Mont to make the chairmen of the US Senate and the Navy Committee aware of his cauldron with a petition.

Today's application in the maritime sector

In 1983, the Berlin company became "La Mont-Kessel GmbH & Co. KG", which mainly deals with the construction of country boilers. In the German merchant navy , diesel engine propulsion has displaced steam turbines in the construction of new ships. In the German Federal Navy and later the German Navy , the steam drive has given way to the combined drives consisting of diesel engines for cruising and gas turbines for high speeds. The La Mont boiler is still used in the area of ​​exhaust gas boilers in merchant shipping.

swell

  • o. V., Comdr. La Mont, naval engineer. Designer of Boiler now used with Success in many Navies dies in 53d Year . In: New York Times , Jan. 20, 1942, p. 19.
  • undated, WD La Mont, 52, Naval Inventor, Dies in New York . In: The Washington Post , Jan. 20, 1942, p. 26.
  • o. V :, Naval Engineer, Native of City, is Heart Victim . In: The Niagara Falls Gazette , Jan. 20, 1942, p. 3.
  • Fulton, William, Nazis benefit from Invention spurned by US And a Navy Man dies of a Broken Heart. In: Chicago Tribune, February 2, 1942, p. 16 ( [1] ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ n.v., Lamont Champion at Annapolis NA . In: The Niagara Falls Gazette , March 21, 1910, p. 5.
  2. ↑ n.v . : Comdr. La Mont, naval engineer. Designer of Boiler now used with Success in many Navies dies in 53d Year . In: The New York Times . New York January 20, 1942, p. 19 .
  3. ↑ n.v., Naval Engineer, Native of City, is Heart Victim. In: The Niagara Falls Gazette, Jan. 20, 1942, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Arlington National Cemetery, grave number: 6211
  5. ↑ n.v., Douglass Lamont Weds Miss Filkins, Wires her Parents . In: The Niagara Falls Gazette , April 21, 1916, p. 13.
  6. ^ O. V :, Naval Engineer, Native of City, is Heart Victim . In: The Niagara Falls Gazette , Jan. 20, 1942, p. 3.
  7. ^ La Mont, Walter Douglas (1918). Steam generator . US Patent No. 1545668
  8. ^ Spencer, JF (1859). Description of a New Construction of High Pressure Steam Boiler , in: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers , 1859, pp. 264-278.
personal data
SURNAME La Mont, Walter Douglas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pilot, marine engineer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Niagara Falls
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1942
Place of death new York