William John Macquorn Rankine (; 5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mechanical engineer who also contributed to

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

, physics and mathematics. He was a founding contributor, with

Rudolf Clausius Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's princip ...

and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), to the science of

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...

, particularly focusing on the first of the three thermodynamic laws. He developed the

Rankine scale The Rankine scale () is an absolute scale of thermodynamic temperature named after the University of Glasgow engineer and physicist Macquorn Rankine, who proposed it in 1859. History Similar to the Kelvin scale, which was first proposed in 184 ...

, an equivalent to the

Kelvin scale The kelvin, symbol K, is the primary unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI), used alongside its prefixed forms and the degree Celsius. It is named after the Belfast-born and University of Glasgow-based engineer and p ...

of temperature, but in degrees Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. Rankine developed a complete theory of 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 ...

and indeed of all heat engines. His manuals of engineering science and practice were used for many decades after their publication in the 1850s and 1860s. He published several hundred papers and notes on science and engineering topics, from 1840 onwards, and his interests were extremely varied, including, in his youth,

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

, music theory and

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Ma ...

, and, in his mature years, most major branches of science, mathematics and engineering. He was an enthusiastic amateur singer, pianist and cellist who composed his own humorous songs.

Life

Rankine was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

to Lt David Rankin (sic), a civil engineer from a military background, who later worked on the

Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway The Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway was an early railway built to convey coal from pits in the vicinity of Dalkeith into the capital. It was a horse-operated line, with a terminus at St Leonards on the south side of Arthur's Seat. Opened in s ...

(locally known as the Innocent Railway). His mother was Barbara Grahame, of a prominent legal and banking family. His father moved around Scotland on various projects and the family moved with him. William was initially educated at home but he later attended Ayr Academy (1828–29) and then the High School of Glasgow (1830). Around 1830 the family moved to Edinburgh when the father got a post as Manager of the Edinburgh to Dalkeith Railway. The family then lived at 2 Arniston Place. In 1834 he was sent to the Scottish Naval and Military Academy on Lothian Road in Edinburgh with the mathematician George Lee. By that year William was already highly proficient in mathematics and received, as a gift from his uncle,

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, Theology, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosophy, natural philosopher"), widely ...

's ''Principia'' (1687) in the original Latin. In 1836, Rankine began to study a spectrum of scientific topics at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...

, including natural history under Robert Jameson and

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancien ...

under

James David Forbes James David Forbes (1809–1868) was a Scottish physicist and glaciologist who worked extensively on the conduction of heat and seismology. Forbes was a resident of Edinburgh for most of his life, educated at its University and a professor ...

. Under Forbes he was awarded prizes for essays on methods of physical inquiry and on the undulatory (or wave) theory of light. During vacations, he assisted his father who, from 1830, was manager and, later, effective treasurer and engineer of the

which brought coal into the growing city. He left the University of Edinburgh in 1838 without a degree (which was not then unusual) and, perhaps because of straitened family finances, became an

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

to Sir

John Benjamin Macneill Sir John Benjamin Macneill FRS (1793 – 2 March 1880) was an eminent Irish civil engineer of the 19th century, closely associated with Thomas Telford. His most notable projects were railway schemes in Ireland. Life He was born in Mountpleasant ...

, who was at the time surveyor to the

Irish Railway Commission The history of rail transport in Ireland began only a decade later than that of Great Britain. By its peak in 1920, Ireland had 3,500 route miles (5,630 km). The current status is less than half that amount, with a large unserviced area arou ...

. During his pupilage he developed a technique, later known as Rankine's method, for laying out railway curves, fully exploiting the

theodolite A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building and ...

and making a substantial improvement in

accuracy Accuracy and precision are two measures of '' observational error''. ''Accuracy'' is how close a given set of measurements ( observations or readings) are to their '' true value'', while ''precision'' is how close the measurements are to each o ...

and productivity over existing methods. In fact, the technique was simultaneously in use by other engineers – and in the 1860s there was a minor dispute about Rankine's priority. The year 1842 also marked Rankine's first attempt to reduce the phenomena of

heat In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is ...

to a mathematical form but he was frustrated by his lack of experimental data. At the time of Queen Victoria's visit to Scotland, later that year, he organised a large bonfire situated on Arthur's Seat, constructed with radiating air passages under the fuel. The bonfire served as a beacon to initiate a chain of other bonfires across Scotland. In 1850 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being Prof

. He won the Society's Keith Prize for the period 1851–53. He served as the Society's Vice President from 1871 to 1872. From 1855 he was Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at Glasgow University. He died at 8 Albion Crescent (now called Dowanside Road), Dowanhill, Glasgow at 11:45pm on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1872, aged only 52. He was unmarried and had no children. His death was registered by his uncle, Alex Grahame (his late mother's brother in law).

Thermodynamics

Undaunted, Rankine returned to his youthful fascination with the mechanics of the

heat engine In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. It does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower stat ...

. Though his theory of circulating streams of elastic vortices whose volumes spontaneously adapted to their environment sounds fanciful to scientists formed on a modern account, by 1849, he had succeeded in finding the relationship between

saturated vapour pressure Vapor pressure (or vapour pressure in English-speaking countries other than the US; see spelling differences) or equilibrium vapor pressure is defined as the pressure exerted by a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases ...

and

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...

. The following year, he used his theory to establish relationships between the temperature,

pressure Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country a ...

and

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematicall ...

of gases, and expressions for the latent heat of

evaporation Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when h ...

of a liquid. He accurately predicted the surprising fact that the apparent

specific heat In thermodynamics, the specific heat capacity (symbol ) of a substance is the heat capacity of a sample of the substance divided by the mass of the sample, also sometimes referred to as massic heat capacity. Informally, it is the amount of heat t ...

of saturated steam would be negative. Emboldened by his success, in 1851 he set out to calculate the efficiency of heat engines and used his theory as a basis to deduce the principle, that the maximum efficiency possible for any heat engine is a function only of the two temperatures between which it operates. Though a similar result had already been derived by

and William Thomson, Rankine claimed that his result rested upon his hypothesis of molecular vortices alone, rather than upon Carnot's theory or some other additional assumption. The work marked the first step on Rankine's journey to develop a more complete theory of heat. In

1853 Events January–March * January 6 – Florida Governor Thomas Brown signs legislation that provides public support for the new East Florida Seminary, leading to the establishment of the University of Florida. * January 8 – Taiping Reb ...

, he coined the term

potential energy In physics, potential energy is the energy held by an object because of its position relative to other objects, stresses within itself, its electric charge, or other factors. Common types of potential energy include the gravitational potenti ...

. Rankine later recast the results of his molecular theories in terms of a macroscopic account of

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of ...

and its transformations. He defined and distinguished between ''actual energy'' which was lost in dynamic processes and ''

'' by which it was replaced. He assumed the sum of the two energies to be constant, an idea already, although surely not for very long, familiar in the law of conservation of energy. From 1854, he made wide use of his ''thermodynamic function'' which he later realised was identical to the

entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodyna ...

of Clausius. By 1855, Rankine had formulated a ''science of energetics'' which gave an account of dynamics in terms of energy and its transformations rather than

force In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a ...

and

motion In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...

. The theory was very influential in the 1890s. In 1859 he proposed the

of temperature, an absolute or thermodynamic scale whose degree is equal to a Fahrenheit degree. In

1862 Events January–March * January 1 – The United Kingdom annexes Lagos Island, in modern-day Nigeria. * January 6 – French intervention in Mexico: French, Spanish and British forces arrive in Veracruz, Mexico. * January ...

, Rankine expanded Lord Kelvin’s theory of universal

heat death Heat death may refer to: *Heat death of the universe, a proposed cosmological event ** Heat death paradox, a philosophical examination of the cosmological event *Hyperthermia, injury up to and including death, from excessive heat *Thermal shock, ...

and, along with Kelvin himself, formulated the

heat death paradox The heat death paradox, also known as thermodynamic paradox, Clausius' paradox and Kelvin’s paradox, is a ''reductio ad absurdum'' argument that uses thermodynamics to show the impossibility of an infinitely old universe. It was formulated in Feb ...

, which disproves the possibly of an infinitely old universe. Energetics offered Rankine an alternative, and rather more mainstream, approach, to his science and, from the mid-1850s, he made rather less use of his molecular vortices. Yet he still claimed that Maxwell's work on electromagnetics was effectively an extension of his model. And, in 1864, he contended that the microscopic theories of heat proposed by Clausius and

James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...

, based on linear atomic motion, were inadequate. It was only in 1869 that Rankine admitted the success of these rival theories. By that time, his own model of the atom had become almost identical with that of Thomson. As was his constant aim, especially as a teacher of engineering, he used his own theories to develop a number of practical results and to elucidate their physical principles including: *The Rankine–Hugoniot equation for propagation of

shock wave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...

s, governs the behaviour of shock waves normal to the oncoming flow. It is named after physicists Rankine and the French engineer Pierre Henri Hugoniot; *The Rankine cycle, an analysis of an ideal heat-engine with a condensor. Like other thermodynamic cycles, the maximum efficiency of the Rankine cycle is given by calculating the maximum efficiency of the

Carnot cycle A Carnot cycle is an ideal thermodynamic cycle proposed by French physicist Sadi Carnot in 1824 and expanded upon by others in the 1830s and 1840s. By Carnot's theorem, it provides an upper limit on the efficiency of any classical thermodyna ...

; *Properties of steam, gases and vapours. The history of rotordynamics is replete with the interplay of theory and practice. Rankine first performed an analysis of a

spinning shaft Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentional ...

in 1869, but his model was not adequate and he predicted that supercritical speeds could not be attained.

Fatigue studies

Rankine was one of the first engineers to recognise that fatigue failures of railway axles was caused by the initiation and growth of brittle cracks. In the early 1840s he examined many broken axles, especially after the Versailles train crash of 1842 when a locomotive axle suddenly fractured and led to the death of over 50 passengers. He showed that the axles had failed by progressive growth of a brittle crack from a shoulder or other stress concentration source on the shaft, such as a

keyway Keyway may refer to: *A part of a keyed joint used to connect a rotating machine element to a shaft; see key (engineering) *A keyhole, a hole or aperture (as in a door or lock) for receiving a key; see lock and key A lock is a mechanical or elec ...

. He was supported by similar direct analysis of failed axles by Joseph Glynn, where the axles failed by slow growth of a brittle crack in a process now known as metal fatigue. It was likely that the front axle of one of the locomotives involved in the Versailles train crash failed in a similar way. Rankine presented his conclusions in a paper delivered to the Institution of Civil Engineers. His work was ignored however, by many engineers who persisted in believing that stress could cause "re-crystallisation" of the metal, a myth which has persisted even to recent times. The theory of recrystallisation was quite wrong, and inhibited worthwhile research until the work of William Fairbairn a few years later, which showed the weakening effect of repeated flexure on large beams. Nevertheless, fatigue remained a serious and poorly understood phenomenon, and was the root cause of many accidents on the railways and elsewhere. It is still a serious problem, but at least is much better understood today, and so can be prevented by careful design.

Other work

Rankine served as

Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics The Regius Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Glasgow was founded in 1840 by Queen Victoria. In 1872 the endowment was increased by the bequest of Isabella Elder in memory of her husband, John Elder. The name of the c ...

at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

from November 1855 until his death in December 1872, pursuing engineering research along a number of lines in civil and

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, ...

. Rankine was instrumental in the formation of the forerunner of Glasgow University Officer Training Corps, the 2nd Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteer Corps at Glasgow University in July 1859, becoming Major in 1860 after it was formed into the first company of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteer Corps; he served until 1864, when he resigned due to pressure of work – much of it associated with Naval Architecture.

Civil engineering

The Rankine Lectures, organised by the British Geotechnical Association, are named in recognition of the significant contributions Rankine made to: * Forces in frame structures; * Soil mechanics; most notably in

lateral earth pressure theory Lateral earth pressure is the pressure that soil exerts in the horizontal direction. The lateral earth pressure is important because it affects the consolidation behavior and strength of the soil and because it is considered in the design of geotec ...

and the stabilization of

retaining wall Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to ...

s. The Rankine method of earth pressure analysis is named after him.

Naval architecture

Rankine worked closely with Clyde shipbuilders, especially his friend and lifelong collaborator James Robert Napier, to make naval architecture into an engineering science. He was a founding member, and first President of the

Institution of Engineers & Shipbuilders in Scotland The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS) is a multi-disciplinary professional body and learned society, founded in Scotland, for professional engineers in all disciplines and for those associated with or taking an interes ...

in 1857. He was an early member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (founded 1860) and attended many of its annual meetings. With William Thomson and others, Rankine was a member of the board of enquiry into the controversial sinking of HMS ''Captain''.

Awards and honours

*Fellow of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts *Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1843 (he was never a full Member) *Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1850 *Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

of London, 1853 * Keith Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1854 *Founding President of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, 1857 * LL.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, 1857 *Foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1868 *The

Rankine Rankine is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * William Rankine (1820–1872), Scottish engineer and physicist ** Rankine body an elliptical shape of significance in fluid dynamics, named for Rankine ** Rankine scale, an absolute-t ...

absolute Fahrenheit scale is named in his honour. *

, a small impact crater near the eastern limb of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

, is also named in his honour. *In 2013 he was one of four inductees to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.

Publications

;Books *
Manual of Applied Mechanics
' (1858) * ''Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers'' (1859) * ''Manual of Civil Engineering'' (1861) * ''Shipbuilding, theoretical and practical'' (1866) * ''Manual of Machinery and Millwork'' (1869) ;Papers
''On the Mechanical Action of Heat, especially in Gases and Vapours''
(1850), read at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 4 February 1850
''On the General Law of Transformation of Energy''
(1853), read at the Glasgow Philosophical Society * ''On the Thermodynamic Theory of Waves of Finite Longitudinal Disturbance'' (1869)
''Outlines of the Science of Energetics''
(1855), read at the Glasgow Philosophical Society ::*This work influenced French physicist

Pierre Duhem Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem (; 9 June 1861 – 14 September 1916) was a French theoretical physicist who worked on thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, and the theory of elasticity. Duhem was also a historian of science, noted for his work on the Eu ...

's ''Traité de l'énergétique'' (1911) in which he considered

, not

classical mechanics Classical mechanics is a physical theory describing the motion of macroscopic objects, from projectiles to parts of machinery, and astronomical objects, such as spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies. For objects governed by classi ...

, to be the more fundamental theory. ;About Rankine *

References

External links

* * *
J. Macquorn Rankine
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rankine, William John Macquorn 1820 births 1872 deaths Academics of the University of Glasgow Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fluid dynamicists Creators of temperature scales Geotechnical engineers British naval architects Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences People educated at Ayr Academy Engineers from Edinburgh Presidents of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland Scottish civil engineers Scottish engineers 19th-century Scottish writers Thermodynamicists Scottish mechanical engineers Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame inductees 19th-century Scottish businesspeople Scientists from Edinburgh