Hermann Föttinger (9 February 1877 in

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

– 28 April 1945 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) was a German engineer and inventor. In the course of his life he submitted over 100

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

applications, but he is most notable for inventing

fluid coupling A fluid coupling or hydraulic coupling is a hydrodynamics, hydrodynamic or 'hydrokinetic' device used to transmit rotating mechanical power.

Career

From 1895 to 1899 Hermann Föttinger studied electrical engineering at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

AG Vulcan Stettin

From 1904 he worked as a chief designer in the shipyard

AG Vulcan Stettin Aktien-Gesellschaft Vulcan Stettin (short AG Vulcan Stettin) was a German shipbuilding and locomotive building company. Founded in 1851, it was located near the former eastern German city of Szczecin, Stettin, today Polish Szczecin. Because of th ...

. He was responsible for the introduction and testing of new

steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...

s. During this time he developed the

fluid coupling A fluid coupling or hydraulic coupling is a hydrodynamics, hydrodynamic or 'hydrokinetic' device used to transmit rotating mechanical power.

consisting of a pump and a turbine in a unit that in further development resulted in the automatic automobile transmission.

Technische Hochschule in Danzig

In 1909 he obtained a position at the Technische Hochschule in Danzig where he started the institute for

fluid dynamics In physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids – liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including (the study of air and other gases in motion ...

technology.

Technische Hochschule Berlin

In 1924 he took up a position as head of the current department of physics and turbines at ''Technische Hochschule Berlin'' (now

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

). Here he remained until his death from grenade fragments in April 1945.

Achievements

Fluid dynamics

Föttinger laid the basis of the fluid dynamics from

Euler Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential ...

over

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 absolut ...

and

Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (; ; 31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894; "von" since 1883) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The ...

to its current uses in the boundary layer of airplane wings and propulsion theory.

Railcars

Together with

Franz Kruckenberg Franz Friedrich Kruckenberg (August 21st 1882 – June 19th 1965) was an engineer and pioneer of high speed railway systems. He designed several high speed trains. His most famous design was the Schienenzeppelin. Kruckenberg was born into an ol ...

he started the Flugbahn-Gesellschaft mbH to develop the

Schienenzeppelin The () or rail zeppelin was an experimental railcar which resembled a Zeppelin airship in appearance. It was designed and developed by the German aircraft engineer Franz Kruckenberg in 1929. Propulsion was by means of a pusher propeller loca ...

s (railroad cars).

Internal combustion engines

Föttinger's patents for

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...

s include: * US1636050, Device for damping the oscillations of multiple crank shafts * US2244453, Scavenging of

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes of the piston, one up and one down, in one revolution of the crankshaft in contrast to a four-stroke engine which re ...

cycle internal combustion engines

Literature

* Hans Jürgen Reuß: ' 'Hermann Föttinger' '. In: Journal (2008) internationally maritime HANSA, 6, S. 58-59. Hamburg: Navigation publishing house "Hansa" C. Schroedter & Co. (Gmbh & Co. KG), 2008.

References

External links

* http://www.hfi.tu-berlin.de/Foettinger/Projekte/SVT137155/svt137155.pdf description of SVT 137 155 * *
detailed representation Föttingers life and creating
the institute for current mechanics and technical acoustics of the TU Berlin, ehem. Hermann-Föttinger-institute for current mechanics
in/volltexte/2008/2012/html/festschrift/foettinger
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fottinger, Hermann 1877 births 1945 deaths 20th-century German inventors German electrical engineers German fluid dynamicists Technical University of Munich alumni Academic staff of the Gdańsk University of Technology Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin Engineers from Nuremberg People from the Kingdom of Bavaria German civilians killed in World War II Deaths by hand grenade