Lorenzo Allievi (November 18, 1856 – October 30, 1941) was an Italian engineer known for being one of the first to explain the

water hammer Hydraulic shock (colloquial: water hammer; fluid hammer) is a pressure surge or wave caused when a fluid in motion, usually a liquid but sometimes also a gas is forced to stop or change direction suddenly; a momentum change. This phenomenon com ...

problem.Kaveh Hariri Asli, Faig Bakhman Ogli Naghiyev, Reza Khodaparast Haghi, Hossien Hariri Asli, Advances in Control and Automation of Water Systems, CRC Press - 2012, page 2

Biography

Allievi was born in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

but moved with his family to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in 1871. There he graduated in 1879. He worked in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

from 1893 to 1901 as CEO of ''Rinascimento di Napoli''. Then he came back to the Rome area and started working in the

Terni Terni ( , ; lat, Interamna (Nahars)) is a city in the southern portion of the region of Umbria in central Italy. It is near the border with Lazio. The city is the capital of the province of Terni, located in the plain of the Nera river. It is ...

steel/chemical/hydroelectric industrial district. In August 1902, when maintenance was being carried out on the hydroelectrical power plant of

Papigno Terni ( , ; lat, Interamna (Nahars)) is a city in the southern portion of the region of Umbria in central Italy. It is near the border with Lazio. The city is the capital of the province of Terni, located in the plain of the Nera river. It is ...

(

), the closure of a water pipe caused its explosion and great damage to the plant. Allievi investigated the problem immediately thereafter and published his fundamental study on the

problem the same year. He continued to study this problem in the following years while still working on hydroelectric power plants and becoming vice president of the Union of Industrials (in Italy). Allievi wrote in 1895 a booklet titled Cinematica della Biella Piana (Tipografia Francesco Giannini e Figli, Naples 1895) where a completely analytical solution to mechanisms design problems is given. Lorenzo Allievi died in Rome on October 30, 1941. In 1952, 50 years after the Terni incident, a large marble plaque was erected in his memory at the front of the Galleto hydroelectric power plant which, after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, had replaced that of Papigno.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allievi, Lorenzo 1856 births 1941 deaths Engineers from Rome Engineers from Naples 19th-century Italian engineers 20th-century Italian engineers 19th-century Italian businesspeople 20th-century Italian businesspeople