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Geoffrey Light WildeOBE (21 May 1917 – 18 August 2007) was a Britishengineer employed byRolls-Royce Limited.[1]
Geoffrey Light Wilde was born in Plumstead, London.
He was first educated inFrance, where his father Alfred was working. His father died when he was 12. He would later move toLeamington and attendWarwick School. He was then apprenticed to theDaimler Company inCoventry. Later he gained anHNC inMechanical Engineering fromCoventry Technical College.
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In 1938 he joinedRolls-Royce Limited inDerby where he did much of the design work for their compressors. While working on test beds for theMerlin engines, he proposed a variable-speedsupercharger, to increase the performance at altitude, that was subsequently incorporated in the Merlin XX. He helpedStanley Hooker to design and develop the Merlin two-stage supercharger used in the Merlin 60-series.
Early jet engines were being developed atLutterworth inLeicestershire, which were having problems withsurging. He tested thecentrifugal compressor at Derby, and found a solution to the difficulties of surging.
In 1943, he was put in charge of the supercharger and compressor department at Derby.
In 1947, he was put in charge of the design and development of theAJ65 Avon axial-flow jet engine. It had had difficulties with compressor blades breaking. He produced solutions for the design of themulti-stage compressor of the Avon, one of R-R's most successful jet engines.
He later oversaw the development of the compressor for theConway, the world's firstturbofan (by-pass) engine.
In 1956, he set up the Advanced Projects Design Office. Work from this department produced theMedway (cancelled) andSpey engines.
In 1960, he formed a new department to investigate new projects. He chose a new three-shaft design, which was launched as the RB211. He proposed itswide chordfan blade to obtain maximum aerodynamic efficiency. He was not responsible for all of the project, and when Hyfil carbon fibre (developed at theRAE) was chosen for the fan blade, he said that "this material would not be strong enough in the case of abird strike". This was found to be experimentally true, at great cost to the project and to Rolls-Royce.
He made great improvements to the design of the high-pressure (HP) turbine blade, and this design is still inRolls-Royce engines today, and in other manufacturers. He also set up the High-Temperature Demonstrator Unit (HTDU) in 1972 to investigate the cooling of turbine blades and thermalfatigue. All airliners today carry this technology.
He retired fromRolls-Royce in 1978. He was appointedOBE in 1969. From theRoyal Society he received theMullard Award in 1979 for his work on theRB211. He died in August 2007 aged 90.
For most of his life he lived atTurnditch inDerbyshire. During the war years he lodged withErnest Townsend and his family inCoxbench, Derbyshire. In 1996 he was awarded an honoraryDTech degree byLoughborough University.[2]