Carl Berg (4 February 1851,

Lüdenscheid Lüdenscheid () is a city in the Märkischer Kreis district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the Sauerland region. Geography Lüdenscheid is located on the saddle of the watershed between the Lenne and Volme rivers which b ...

– 26 May 1906,

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

and

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

builder. Berg came from a commercial iron-works family. His great grandfather founded a button-making factory on 1786 in Lüdenscheid. In the following generations the factory developed into an important metal-working company. Among others it incorporated a brass works and an iron works in Eveking (today Werdohl). After his father's death Carl Berg, at the age of 20, took over the firm and expanded it further. Early on he recognised the opportunities in the electrical industries and delivered special wire for the Post to use for telegraph and telephone. Other non-ferrous metals were developed. Berg founded as subsidiaries the copperworks "Deutschland" in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and "Österreich" in Außig (part of

Cavertitz Cavertitz is a municipality in the district Nordsachsen, in Saxony, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and th ...

, in Bohemia). Above all he realised the advantages of aluminium as a light building material and his Lüdenscheid firm became a pioneer of the aluminium industry. In 1892 Berg delivered material to the airship constructor David Schwarz for his first aluminium rigid dirigible in Russia, 1892 to 1894, and also for Schwarz's second aluminium airship in Berlin, 1895 to 1897. Berg's firm constructed the framework and separate parts. After Schwarz's death, Carl Berg worked with the Schwarz's widow to complete construction of the second airship up to its partially successful test flight. By the end of 1897

Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (german: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships a ...

had discussed possible airship design with Berg, and together with Philipp Holzman in May 1898 they formed the joint stock company ''Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Luftschiffart''. Zeppelin contributed 800,000 Marks, almost half the capital. After building the first Zeppelin in a floating hangar on Lake Constance and executing three test flights, the shareholders were reluctant to invest more and the company was liquidated in 1900. Berg continued to provide materials for Zeppelin's airships.

Aluminium alloys

For the Schwarz airship Berg used an alloy of unknown composition named Viktoria aluminium. For the

Zeppelin LZ 1 The Zeppelin ''LZ 1'' was the first successful experimental rigid airship. It was first flown from a floating hangar on Lake Constance, near Friedrichshafen in southern Germany, on 2 July 1900.Lueger, Otto: Lexikon der gesamten Technik und ihre ...

, Zeppelin's first design, he used pure aluminium. For Zeppelin LZ 2 to LZ 25 Berg used aluminium alloyed with zinc and zinc-copper. Berg also produced

duralumin Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The term is a combination of '' Dürener'' and ''aluminium''. Its use as a tra ...

, an alloy with copper, manganese and magnesium invented by Alfred Wilm. Zeppelin immediately wished to use this superior alloy, but it had technical difficulties not satisfactorily resolved until 1915 when it was used in LZ 26.

Death

After Berg's death in 1906, Zeppelin became the customer of Carl Berg AG (operated from 1906 until 1926).

Notes

References

* Dooley, Sean C.
The Development of Material-Adapted Structural Form

Part II: Appendices
Thèse No 2986 (2004),

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

External links

*
Carl Berg
im Deutschen Museum Munich
record from Westphalian business archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berg, Carl 1851 births 1906 deaths People from Lüdenscheid German aerospace engineers Engineers from North Rhine-Westphalia

Aluminium alloys

Death

Notes

References

Other reading

External links