Hugo Lentz (1859–1944) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

mechanical engineer Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...

, born in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. He was the inventor of many award-winning improvements to the

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

. The correct spelling of his name is Lenz but it has been

Anglicised Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

to Lentz in English-speaking countries.

Life and career

Lentz was born on 21 July 1859 in

. When he was six years old, his father died and the family returned to relatives in Germany. He became an engineer in the

Prussian Navy The Prussian Navy (German: ''Preußische Marine''), officially the Royal Prussian Navy (German: ''Königlich Preußische Marine''), was the naval force of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1701 to 1867. The Prussian Navy was created in 1701 from the f ...

. In 1888, Lentz founded his own machine factory in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. At an exposition in honour of

Alessandro Volta Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (, ; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian physicist, chemist and lay Catholic who was a pioneer of electricity and power who is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the ...

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label=Comasco dialect, Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and ...

in 1899, his first steam engine won the first prize. At the

Exposition Universelle (1900) The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate developmen ...

in Paris, it won the ''Grand Prix'' while Lentz himself was awarded the gold medal. From 1907, ''Davey, Paxman & Co'',''History of Paxman's Ownership and Corporate Identity''
at www.paxmanhistory.org.uk. Accessed on 21 Feb 2013. and later the ''Erie City Iron Works'' in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

built Lentz's steam engines. In total, Lentz acquired some 2000 patents. He is best known for his steam

valve gear The valve gear of a steam engine is the mechanism that operates the inlet and exhaust valves to admit steam into the cylinder and allow exhaust steam to escape, respectively, at the correct points in the cycle. It can also serve as a reversing g ...

with oscillating and rotating cams to actuate

poppet valve A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine. It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usual ...

s. He also developed an eponymous form of locomotive boiler, the

Lentz boiler A launch-type, gunboat or horizontal multitubular boiler is a form of small steam boiler. It consists of a cylindrical horizontal shell with a cylindrical furnace and fire-tubes within this. Their name derives from the boiler's popular use at o ...

, with a corrugated tubular furnace. Paxman-Lentz single-cylinder engine (Rankin Kennedy, Modern Engines, Vol IV)

Lentz died on 21 March 1944.

References

External links

A History of Lentz Valve Gear on British Steam Locomotives
Locomotive valve gear 1859 births 1944 deaths Austrian railway mechanical engineers Austrian inventors {{Austria-engineer-stub