Frederick W. Lanchester | |
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| Born | (1868-10-23)23 October 1868 St John's Wood, London, England |
| Died | 8 March 1946(1946-03-08) (aged 77) Birmingham, England |
| Parent | Henry Jones Lanchester |
| Relatives |
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| Engineering career | |
| Significant advance | |
| Awards | |
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Frederick William Lanchester (23 October 1868 – 8 March 1946), was an Englishpolymath andengineer who made important contributions toautomotive engineering and toaerodynamics, and co-invented the topic ofoperations research.
Lanchester became a pioneer British motor-car builder, a hobby which resulted in him building the first British car in 1895[2] and developing a successfulcar company.
Some of the innovations Lanchester developed have gone on to become widely adopted in the car industry.[3]
Lanchester was born in 18 Alma Square inSt John's Wood,London toHenry Jones Lanchester (1834–1914), an architect, and his wife Octavia (1834–1916),[4] a tutor of Latin and mathematics. He was the fourth of eight children; his older brotherHenry Vaughan Lanchester also became an architect; his younger sisterEdith Lanchester was a socialist andsuffragette; and his brothersGeorge Herbert Lanchester and Frank joined him in forming theLanchester Motor Company.
When he was a year old, his father relocated the family toBrighton, and young Frederick attended a preparatory school and a nearby boarding school, where he did not distinguish himself. He himself, thinking back, remarked that, "it seemed that Nature was conserving his energy". However, he did succeed in winning a scholarship to theHartley Institution, inSouthampton, and after three years won another scholarship, toKensington College, which is now part ofImperial College. He supplemented his instruction in applied engineering by attending evening classes atFinsbury Technical School. Unfortunately, he ended his education without having obtained a formal qualification.
When he completed his education in 1888, he acquired a job as aPatent Office draughtsman for £3 a week. About this time he registered a patent for anisometrograph, a draughtsman's instrument for hatching, shading and other geometrical design work.[5]
In 1919, at the age of fifty-one, Lanchester married Dorothea Cooper, the daughter of Thomas Cooper, the vicar ofSt Peter's Church inField Broughton inLancashire. The couple relocated to 41 Bedford Square, London, but in 1924 Lanchester built a house to his own design (Dyott End) in Oxford Road,Moseley, Birmingham. The couple remained there for the rest of their life together but did not have any children.[6]
He was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society in 1922,[1] and in 1926 theRoyal Aeronautical Society awarded him a fellowship and a gold medal.[7]
In 1925 Lanchester founded a company named Lanchester Laboratories Ltd., to perform industrial research and development work. Although he developed an improved radio and gramophone speaker, he was unable to market it successfully because of theGreat Depression.[8] He continued, overworking, until in 1934 his health failed and the company was forced to close. He was diagnosed eventually withParkinson's disease and was reportedly much grieved that this, along with cataracts in both eyes, prevented him from "doing any official job" during theSecond World War.[9]
He was awarded gold medals by theInstitution of Civil Engineers in 1941 and theInstitution of Mechanical Engineers in 1945.
Although he achieved his fame by his creative brilliance as an engineer, Frederick Lanchester was a man of diverse interests, blessed with a fine singing voice.[9] Using the pseudonym of Paul Netherton-Herries he published two volumes of poetry.[9]
Lanchester, who had never been successful commercially, lived the remainder of his life in straitened circumstances, and it was only through charitable help that he was able to remain in his home. He died at his home, Dyott End, on 8 March 1946.[5]
Near the end of 1888, Lanchester went to work for theForward Gas Engine Company ofSaltley,Birmingham as assistant works manager. His contract of employment included a clause stating that any technical improvements that he made would be the intellectual property of the company. Lanchester wisely struck this out before signing. This action was prescient, for in 1889 he invented and patented aPendulum Governor to control engine speeds, for which he received aroyalty of ten shillings for each one fitted to a Forward Engine. In 1890 he patented a Pendulum Accelerometer, for recording the acceleration and braking of road and rail vehicles.
After the death of the current works manager, Lanchester was promoted to his job. He then designed a new gas engine of greater size and power than any produced by the company before. The engine was a vertical one with horizontal, opposedpoppet valves for inlet and exhaust. The engine had a very lowcompression ratio, but was very economical to operate.[citation needed]
In 1890 Lanchester patented a self-starting device for gas engines. He subsequently sold the rights for his invention to theCrossley Gas Engine Company for a handsome sum.
He rented a small workshop next to the Forward Company's works and used this for experimental work of his own. In this workshop, he produced a small vertical single cylinder gas engine of 3 bhp (2.2 kW), running at 600 rpm. This was coupled directly to adynamo, which Lanchester used to light the company's office and part of the factory.[5]
Lanchester began to find the conflict between his job as works manager and his research work irksome. Therefore, in 1893, he resigned his job in favour of his younger brother George. At about the same time, he produced a second engine type similar in design to his previous one but operating onbenzene at 800 rpm. An important part of his new engine was the revolutionarycarburettor, for mixing the fuel and air correctly. His invention was known as a wick carburettor, because fuel was drawn into a series of wicks, from where it was vapourised. He patented this invention in 1905.
Lanchester installed his new petrol engine in a flat-bottomed launch, which the engine drove via a sternpaddle wheel. Lanchester built the launch in the garden of his home inOlton,Warwickshire. The boat was launched at Salter's slipway inOxford in 1904, and was the first motorboat built in Britain.[5]
Having put a petrol engine in a boat, the next logical step was to use it for road transport. Lanchester set about designing a four-wheeled vehicle to be driven by a petrol engine. He designed a new petrol engine of 5 bhp (3.7 kW), with twocrankshafts rotating in opposite directions, for exemplary smoothness,[10] and air cooling by way of vanes mounted on the flywheel.[11] There was a revolutionary[11]epicyclic gearbox (years beforeHenry Ford adopted it)[11] giving two forward speeds plus reverse, and which drove the rear wheelsvia chains. With a walnut body, it seated three, side by side.[11] (By contrast,Rudolf Egg's tricycle had a 3 hp (2.2 kW) 402 cc {24½in3)[12]de Dion-Bouton single and was capable of 40 km/h {25 mph},[12] andLéon Bollée's trike a 1.9 kW {2.5 hp} 650 cc (40 in3)[12] engine of his own design, capable of over 50 km/h {30 mph}.[12]
Lanchester's car was completed in 1895 and given its first test run in 1896, and proved to be unsatisfactory, being underpowered and having transmission problems. Lanchester designed a new 8 hp (6 kW) 2,895 cc (177 in3)[11] air-cooled engine with two horizontally opposed cylinders, still with two crankshafts. He also re-designed the epicyclic gearbox and combined it with the engine. Adriveshaft connected the gearbox to alive axle. The new engine and transmission were fitted to the original 1895 car.
Lanchester had relocated his business to larger workshops in Ladywood Road, Fiveways,Birmingham as work on the car progressed and had also sold his house to help finance the cost of his research. A second car was then built with the same engine and transmission but with Lanchester's own design ofcantilever suspension. This was completed in 1898 and won a gold medal for its design and performance at the Automobile Exhibition and Trials at Richmond. It became known as the Gold MedalPhaeton.
In 1898, Lanchester designed a water-cooled version of his 8 bhp (6.0 kW) engine, which was fitted to a boat, driving a propeller. In 1900 the Gold Medal Phaeton was entered for the firstRoyal Automobile Club 1,000 Miles Trial and completed the course successfully after one mechanical failure en route.[5]
In December 1899 Lanchester and his brothers created the Lanchester Engine Company in order to manufacture cars that could be sold to the public. A factory was acquired in Montgomery Street,Sparkbrook,Birmingham, known as the Armourer Works.[13][n 2] In his new factory, Lanchester designed a new ten horsepower twin cylinder engine. He decided to use aworm drive transmission and designed a machine to cut the worm gears. He patented this machine in 1905 and it continued for 25 years to produce all of the Lanchester worm gears. He also introduced the use of splined shafts and couplings in place of keys and keyways, another innovation that he patented. The back axle had roller bearings and Lanchester designed the machines to make these. His car was designed with the engine placed between the two front seats rather than at the front, and also had a side-mountedtiller rather than a steering wheel. The transmission also included a system similar to moderndisc brakes that clamped theclutch disc for braking, rather than using a separate system as in most cars.[5] On 1 December 1902, Lanchester was awarded Patent No. 26,407 for the disc brake.[21]
The new 10 hp car appeared in 1901 and remained in production until 1905, with only minor design modifications. He became a friend ofRudyard Kipling and would send him experimental models to test. In 1905, Lanchester produced a 20 hp four-cylinder engine, and in 1906 he produced a 28 hp six-cylinder engine. Although SirHenry Royce had already tackled the problem ofcrankshaft torsional oscillation and consequent vibration instraight-6 engines, Lanchester analysed the problem scientifically and invented thetorsional crankshaft vibration damper as a solution to the problem of engine balance.[22] His design, patented in 1907, used a secondary flywheel coupled to the end of the crankshaft with aviscous clutch. At around the same time Lanchester also patented aharmonic balancer to cancel out the unbalanced secondary forces in a four-cylinder engine, using two balance weights rotating at twice crankshaft speed in opposite directions.[22]
The Lanchester Engine Company sold about 350 cars of various designs between 1900 and 1904, when they becamebankrupt due to the incompetence of the board of directors. It was immediately reformed asTheLanchester Motor Company. During this period he also experimented withfuel injection,turbochargers, added steering wheels in 1907 and invented the accelerator pedal to help control engine operation, which previously would not cease if the operator had problems. He invented (or was the first to use) detachable wire wheels, bearings that were pressure-fed with oil, stamped steelpistons,piston rings, hollowconnecting rods, the torsional vibration damper for 6-cylinder engines, and the harmonic balancer for 4-cylinder designs.
Eventually Lanchester became disillusioned with the activities of the company's directors, and in 1910 resigned as general manager, becoming their part-time consultant and technical adviser. His brothers, George and Frank, assumed technical and administrative responsibility for the company.
In 1909 Lanchester became a technical consultant for theDaimler Company where he became involved in a number of engineering projects including the Daimler-Knight engine, variants of which powered the petrol-electric KPL bus and theDaimler-Renard Road Train,[23] and the firstBritish heavy tanks of World War I and powered all Daimler cars from 1909 to the mid-1930s winning in 1909 the coveted RACDewar Trophy.
Working with Daimler inCoventry, the American inventor Charles Knight had obtained a British patent for his modifiedKnight engine on 6 June 1908, and in September 1908 Daimler announced the first 4-cylinder Daimler-Knight engine[24] a doublesleeve-valve design developed from Knight's 1904 patents.[25][26] Daimler had put all its resources into this "rather unsatisfactory engine" (according to Harry Ricardo), but although Lanchester continued to develop and work on the design, "he had realised that it was a forlorn hope from the start."[23]
The hybrid petrol-electric KPL (Knight-Pieper-Lanchester) bus used a pair of 4-cylinder, 12 h.p. (R.A.C. rating) Daimler-Knight engines each coupled to adynamotor driving one of the rear wheels, using a patent ofHenri Pieper.[27] The bus was announced in June 1910 but theTilling-Stevens company (an associate of theLondon General Omnibus Company) threatened a patent infringement action, and it was withdrawn in May 1911 after only 10 buses had been made.[28]
Daimler began importing theRenard Road Train in February 1907.[29] Daimler fitted a number of four-cylinder 'pre-Knight' engines in the Road Train;[30] Lanchester's development work resulted in a 75/80 hp Daimler-Knight 6-cylinder engine for the Daimler-Renard tractor unit in 1910.[31] TheBirmingham Small Arms company (BSA) bought Daimler in 1910, and Lanchester became consultant engineer to the new parent company.[23]
A larger 100 hp 6-cylinder engine with twin crankshafts each driving a sleeve-valve[32] appeared in January 1912, fitted to the larger of two Daimler-Foster agricultural tractors ('Agritractors') made in conjunction withWilliam Foster & Co. ofLincoln.[33] According toHarry Ricardo, the duplication of the whole of the valve operating mechanism involved excessive mechanical complication and introduced grave difficulties in the way of mechanical synchronization.[34][n 3] Lanchester designed a newcylinder head for sleeve-valve engines and patented it with Daimler in February 1913.[35] Gaining an extra 5 hp by April 1913, the 105 hp Daimler-Knight engine[36] (coupled with the tractor's massive transmission designed byWilliam Tritton) powered theDaimler-Foster artillery tractor, the No. 1 Lincoln Machine,Little Willie, and the BritishMark I-IV tanks duringWorld War I.[37]
Lanchester's contract with Daimler was terminated after theWall Street crash of 1929; the Lanchester Motor Company's overdraft was also withdrawn, forcing immediate liquidation of its assets. BSA group, the owners of Daimler since 1910, completed the purchase of the Lanchester company in January 1931 and moved production toRadford, Coventry.[38][39][40]
Lanchester began to studyaeronautics seriously in 1892, eleven years before the first successful powered flight. Whilst crossing theAtlantic on a voyage to the United States, Lanchester studied the flight ofherring gulls, seeing how they were able to use motionless wings to catch up-currents of air. He measured various birds to see how the centre of gravity compared with the centre of support. As a result of his deliberations, Lanchester, eventually formulated his circulation theory of flight. This is the basis of aerodynamics and the foundation of modernaerofoil theory. In 1894 he tested his theory on a number of models. In 1897 he presented a paper entitled "The soaring of birds and the possibilities of mechanical flight" to thePhysical Society, but it was rejected, being too advanced for its time. Lanchester realised that powered flight required an engine with a much greaterpower-to-weight ratio than any existing engine. He proposed to design and build such an engine, but was advised that no one would take him seriously.[5]
Lanchester was discouraged by the attitude to his aeronautical theory, and concentrated on automobile development for the next ten years. In 1906 he published the first part of a two-volume work,Aerial Flight, dealing with the problems of powered flight (Lanchester 1906). In it, he developed a model for thevortices that occur behindwings during flight,[41] which included the first full description oflift anddrag. His book was not well received in England, but created interest in Germany where the scientistLudwig Prandtl mathematically confirmed the correctness of Lanchester's vortex theory. In his second volume, Lanchester turned his attention to aircraft stability,Aerodonetics (Lanchester 1908), developing hisphugoid theory which contained a description of oscillations and stalls. During this work he outlined the basic layout used in most aircraft since then. Lanchester's contribution to aeronautical science was not recognised until the end of his life.
In 1909H. H. Asquith'sAdvisory Committee for Aeronautics was established, and Lanchester was appointed a member. Lanchester predicted correctly that aircraft would play an increasingly important part in warfare, unlike the military command which envisioned warfare as continuing much the same way it had in the past.
The same year, 1909, Lanchester patentedcontra-rotating propellers.[42]
In 1914 he gave theInstitution of Civil Engineers' 'James Forrest Lecture', on the subject of "The Flying Machine From An Engineering Standpoint".[43]
Lanchester was particularly interested in predicting the outcome of aerial battles. In 1914, before the start ofWorld War I, he published his ideas on aerial warfare in a series of articles inEngineering.[44] They were published in book form in 1916 asAircraft in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth Arm,(Lanchester 1916) and included a description of a series ofdifferential equations that are known now asLanchester's Power Laws.[45] These laws described how two forces would attrit each other in combat, and demonstrated that the ability of modern weapons to operate at long ranges dramatically changed the nature of combat—a force that was twice as large had been twice as powerful in the past, but now it was four times, the square of the quotient.[46]
Lanchester's Laws were originally applied practically in the United States to studylogistics, where they developed intooperations research (OR) (operational research inUK usage). OR techniques are now widely used, perhaps most so for business.
After the war, the company introduced the more conventional Forty engine, a rival for theRolls-Royce 40/50 hp; it was joined in 1924 by anoverhead cam 21 hp (RAC Rating) six cylinder engine. In 1921 Lanchester was the first company to export left-hand drive cars. Tinted glass was also introduced on these cars for the first time. A 4440 ccstraight eight engine was introduced at the 1928Southport Rally, again with overhead cams: it proved to be the last "real" Lanchester, in 1931 the company was acquired by B.S.A., who had also owned the Daimler Company since 1909. From then until 1956, Lanchester cars were built at the Daimler factory in Coventry as sister cars with Daimler, like R-R with Bentley [ref Lanchester Legacy trilogy].
Lanchester was respected by most fellow engineers as a genius, but he did not have the business acumen to convert his inventiveness to financial gain. WhereasJames Watt had found an able business partner inMatthew Boulton, who managed business affairs, Lanchester had no such assistance. During most of his career he lacked financial backing to be able to develop his ideas and perform research, as he would have liked. He nonetheless made many contributions in many different fields. He wrote more than sixty technical papers for various institutions and organisations, and received awards from a number of bodies.
Lanchester's papers, notebooks, and related material are dispersed between a number of archive collections, including those ofCoventry University, theUniversity of Southampton Library,Birmingham Museums Trust, theNational Aerospace Library, theInstitution of Mechanical Engineers,Cambridge University'sChurchill Archives Centre and theBodleian Library atOxford University.[47]
In 1970, several colleges inCoventry merged to formLanchester Polytechnic, so named in memory of Frederick Lanchester.[48] It was renamedCoventry Polytechnic in 1987, and becameCoventry University in 1992.
Coventry University's Lanchester Library opened in 2000. Its name commemorates Frederick Lanchester and the previous incarnation of the university as Lanchester Polytechnic. Like much of Lanchester's own work, apparently regardless of convention, its form displays the way it functions.
Its distinctive appearance comes from the building's energy efficient specifications, making use of light wells and exhaust stacks to draw air through the building, providing natural ventilation.
An open-airsculpture, theLanchester Car Monument, in the Bloomsbury, Heartlands, area of Birmingham, designed byTim Tolkien, is on the site where the Lanchester company built their first four-wheel, petrol car in 1895. It was unveiled by Frank Lanchester's daughter, Mrs Marjorie Bingeman, and the Lanchester historian, Chris Clark at the Centenary Rally in 1995.
Volumes 1 and 2 are comprehensive illustrated accounts of Lanchester cars. Volume 3 covers Lanchester's other inventions.
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