Walther Simmer

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Walther Simmer (born July 8, 1888 in Vienna , † March 8, 1986 in Kufstein ) was an Austrian engineer and inventor of the Simmerring .

education and study

His first activities in terms of mechanical equipment began in the electricity company in Selva di Val Gardena . Then he went to Munich to the Weiffenbach factory, which manufactured pyrotechnic products. He studied electrical engineering and mechanical engineering at what was then Technikum Mittweida . He then worked as an engineer for the Bayerische Überlandzentrale AG Haidhof until the end of the First World War .

Development of the shaft seal

In 1919 his successful work began in the Carl Freudenberg leather factory in Weinheim . In the factory he was involved in the development of a leather splitting machine. In this splitting machine, ox skins were split, which were prepared in a previous operation with brine for further processing. This revealed the problem of sealing the ball bearings on the machine, which were destroyed by insufficient sealing of the bearings by felt rings.

There were leather seals from the USA that showed better sealing properties on pump tappets, but they had to be imported and were a financial burden. Thorough tests with chrome leather in a cuff ring, which was embedded in a sheet metal housing ring and pressed against the machine's working shaft by means of a coil tension spring, made it possible to achieve sufficient tightness and service life . In 1929 the first version of a new seal was completed. The sealing rings could be further improved by a special treatment of the chrome leather used.

Use of new materials and improved production

His invention soon caught on in the auto industry, so that traces of oil from parked cars were soon a thing of the past. In 1936, chrome leather was replaced by the new material Buna . Two years later he was able to achieve an even better service life with the material Perbunan . Simmer was also able to improve the processing of the base material rubber , which reduced production costs by four fifths.

This invention went down in the history of technology under the name Simmerring and found the standard designation radial shaft sealing ring (shaft sealing ring) according to DIN 3760 .

Return to Tyrol

After the Second World War he returned to his homeland and bought a plot of land near Kufstein. In May 1950 he founded the company Simmerwerke W. Simmer KG . By 1970, Simmer had produced around 60 million Simmerrings in the plant . Because of his services, the Austrian Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger awarded him the title of professor in 1978 . Although he retired from direct work in the factory around the mid-sixties, he influenced the further development of his company until 1985, when his company was taken over by Carl Freudenberg Weinheim .

Honors

  • 1962: Title Technical Council
  • 1968: Cross of Merit of the State of Tyrol
  • 1973: Tyrolean Inventor Award
  • 1978: title professor

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herbert Neureuter, Walther Simmer and the "Simmerring", in: Helmut Alexander, Innovatives Tirol - Technician, Inventor, Entrepreneur, Innsbruck 2007, pp. 180–185
  2. ↑ Georg Küffner, Holding tight is her job, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 23, 2010
  3. ↑ In a leather splitting machine, the leather to be processed is stretched by two rollers and split into two equal parts by a splitting knife
  4. ↑ Georg Küffner, ibid, p. 181
  5. ↑ A pump tappet is a cylindrical transport element on the pump through which the medium to be conveyed enters the pump or is pumped out
  6. ^ First version of a new poem by Walther Simmer in 1929 ( Memento from October 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Shaft seals
  8. ^ Austrian Research Institute for Economy and Politics, Reports and Information, Volume 351–375, 1963, p. 26
  9. ↑ Herbert Neureuter, ibid, p. 183
personal data
SURNAME Simmer, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian engineer and inventor of the Simmerring
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1986
Place of death Kufstein