Beauchamp Tower (13 January 1845 – 31 December 1904) was an English inventor and railway engineer who is chiefly known for his discovery of full-film or hydrodynamic lubrication.[1]
Beauchamp Tower | |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 January 1845 |
| Died | 31 December 1904 |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Engineering career | |
| Significant advance | Hydrodynamic lubrication |
Early life
editBeauchamp Tower was born the son of Robert Beauchamp Tower, rector of Moreton, Essex and educated at Uppingham School, Rutland. He decided at the age of 16 that he wanted to become an engineer and received early training at the Armstrong Works at Elswick, where he stayed for a few months as a draughtsman after completing his four-year apprenticeship.
Inventions
edit
Beauchamp Tower held several patents regarding an apparatus for maintaining a constant plane in a floating vessel.[2][3] The apparatus is based on the gyroscopic principle. One of the possible applications of this patent was steadying guns on shipboard.[4] In 1977, he was named by Duncan Dowson as one of the 23 "Men of Tribology".[5][6]
Influence
editTower's work on lubrication influenced many other engineers, including Osborne Reynolds, who acknowledged Tower in his 1886 paper on lubrication and the viscosity of olive oil.[7] Lord Kelvin credited Tower with the idea of a chain and pulleys as part of his Tide-predicting machine.[8]
References
edit- ^ "Illustrations and description of Tower's spherical steam engine". Tower. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
- ^ "Beauchamp tower".
- ^ "Tower".
- ^ "Apparatus for steadying guns on shipboard".
- ^ Dowson, Duncan (1 October 1977). "Men of Tribology: Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)". Journal of Lubrication Technology. 99 (4): 382–386. doi:10.1115/1.3453230. ISSN 0022-2305.
- ^ Dowson, Duncan (1 January 1979). "Men of Tribology: John William Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) (1842–1919) and Beauchamp Tower (1845–1904)". Journal of Lubrication Technology. 101 (1): 1–7. doi:10.1115/1.3453272. ISSN 0022-2305.
- ^ Reynolds, Osborne (1886). "On the Theory of Lubrication and Its Application to Mr. Beauchamp Tower's Experiments, Including an Experimental Determination of the Viscosity of Olive Oil". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 177: 157–234. JSTOR 109480. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ Casselman, Bill. "Fourier Analysis of Ocean Tides III". AMS American Mathematical Society. Retrieved 4 December 2021.