Hans von Ohain
Encyclopedia
Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (December 14, 1911 March 13, 1998) was a German
engineer, one of the inventors of jet propulsion
.
Frank Whittle
, who patented in 1930 in the United Kingdom
, and Hans von Ohain, who patented in 1936 in Germany
, developed the concept independently during the late 1930s. Although credit for the first successfully run turbojet is given to Whittle, Ohain's design was the first to power an all-jet aircraft, the first prototype of the Heinkel He 178
in late August 1939. Although none of his designs entered production, his contributions to the development of the jet engine in Germany
are invaluable. After the war, he met his British counterpart, Frank Whittle
, and the two became good friends.
, Germany, he earned a Ph.D.
in Physics
and Aerodynamics
from the University of Göttingen, then one of the major centers for aeronautical research, and was lectured by Ludwig Prandtl. During his studies, in 1933 he conceived of "an engine that did not require a propeller." After receiving his degree in 1935, Ohain became the junior assistant of Robert Wichard Pohl
, then director of the Physical Institute of the University.
In 1936, while working for Pohl, von Ohain earned a patent on his version of jet engines, Process and Apparatus for Producing Airstreams for Propelling Airplanes. Unlike Frank Whittle
's design, von Ohain's design used a centrifugal compressor and turbine placed very close together, back to back, with the flame cans wrapped around the outside of the assembly.
While working at the University, von Ohain often took his sports car to be serviced at a local garage, Bartles and Becker. Here he met an automotive engineer, Max Hahn, and eventually arranged for him to build a model to his design, which cost about 1,000 DM. The resulting model was even larger in diameter than Whittle's 1937 fully working engine, although much shorter along the thrust axis. When the model was complete he took it to the University for testing, but ran into serious problems with combustion stability. Often the fuel would not burn inside the flame cans, and would instead be blown through the turbine where it would ignite in the air, shooting flames out the back and overheating the electric motor powering the compressor.
on behalf of von Ohain, telling him of the design and its possibilities. Heinkel arranged a meeting where his engineers were able to grill von Ohain for hours, during which he flatly stated that the current "garage engine" would never work but there was nothing wrong with the concept as a whole. The engineers were convinced, and in April, von Ohain and Hahn were set up at Heinkel's works at the Marienehe airfield outside Rostock
, in Warnemünde
.
Once moved, a study was made of the airflow in the model, and several improvements made over a two month period. Much happier with the results, they decided to produce a completely new engine incorporating all of these changes, running on hydrogen
gas supplied by an external pressurised source. The resulting Heinkel-Strahltriebwerk 1 (HeS 1
), German for Heinkel Jet Engine 1, was built by hand-picking some of the best machinists in the company, much to the chagrin of the shop-floor supervisors. Hahn, meanwhile, worked on the combustion problem, an area he had some experience in.
The engine was extremely simple, made largely of sheet metal. Construction started late in the summer of 1936, and completed in March 1937. It ran two weeks later on hydrogen, but the high temperature exhaust led to considerable "burning" of the metal. The tests were otherwise successful, and in September the combustors were replaced and the engine was run on gasoline for the first time. Von Ohain had at last, albeit 5 months after Whittle, run a self-contained turbojet. Running on gasoline proved to clog up the combustors, so Hahn designed a new version based on his soldering torch, which proved to work much better. Although the engine was never intended to be a flight-quality design, it proved beyond a doubt that the basic concept was workable. Von Ohain had caught up with Whittle at last. From now on, with vastly more funding and industry support, Von Ohain would soon overtake Whittle and forge ahead.
While work on the HeS 1 continued, the team had already moved on to the design of a flight-quality design, the HeS 3
. The major differences were the use of machined compressor and turbine stages, replacing the bent and folded sheet metal, and a re-arrangement of the layout to reduce the cross-sectional area of the engine as a whole by placing the flame cans in an extended gap between the compressor and turbine. The original design proved to have a turbine area that was simply too small to work efficiently, and increasing the size of the turbine meant the flame cans no longer fit in the gap correctly. A new design, the HeS 3b
was proposed, which moved the flame cans out of the gap and modified their shape to allow the widest part of the cans to lie in front of the compressor's outer rim. In the 3b, compressed air was piped forward to the combustion chambers, and from there the now-hot air flowed rearward into the turbine inlet. While not as small as the original HeS 3 design, the 3b was nevertheless fairly compact. The 3b first ran July 1939 (some references say May), and was air-tested under the Heinkel He 118
dive bomber
prototype. The original 3b engine soon burned out, but a second one was nearing completion at about the same time as a new test airframe, the Heinkel He 178
, which first flew on August 27, 1939, the first jet-powered aircraft to fly by test pilot
Erich Warsitz
.
Work started immediately on larger versions, first the HeS 6 which was simply a larger HeS 3b, and then on a new design known as the HeS 8 which once again re-arranged the overall layout. The 8 separated the compressor and turbine, connecting them with a long shaft, placing a single annular combustion chamber between them, replacing the individual flame cans. It was intended to install the engine on the Heinkel He 280
fighter
, but the airframe development progressed much more smoothly than the engine, and had to be used in gliding tests while work on the engine continued. A flight-quality HeS 8 was installed in late March 1941, followed by the first flight on April 2. Three days later the aircraft was demonstrated for a party of Nazi
and RLM
officials, all of whom were impressed. Full development funds soon followed.
By this point there were a number of turbojet developments taking place in Germany. Heinkel was so impressed by the concept that he had brought on Adolph Müller from Junkers, who was developing an axial compressor
-powered design, renamed as the Heinkel HeS 30
. Müller had left Junkers after they purchased the Junkers Motoren company, who had their own project under way, which by this time was known as the Junkers Jumo 004
. Meanwhile BMW
was making good progress with their own design, the BMW 003.
By early 1942 the HeS 8, officially the 109-001 (HeS 001), was still not progressing well. Meanwhile Müller's HeS 30, officially the 109-006 (HeS 006), was developing much more quickly. Both engines were still some time from being ready for production, however, while the 003 and 004 appeared to be ready to go. In early 1942 the director of jet development at the RLM, Helmut Schelp
, refused further funding for both designs, and ordered Heinkel to work on a new "pet project" of his own, eventually becoming the Heinkel HeS 011. Although this was the first of Schelp's "Class II" engines to start working well, production had still not started when the war ended. Work continued on the HeS 8 for some time, but it was eventually abandoned in the spring of 1943.
by Operation Paperclip
and went to work for the United States Air Force
at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
. In 1956 he was made the Director of the Air Force Aeronautical Research Laboratory and by 1975 he was the Chief Scientist of the Aero Propulsion Laboratory there.
During his work at Wright-Patterson, von Ohain continued his own personal work on various topics. In the early 1960s he did a fair amount of work on the design of gas core reactor rocket
s which would retain the nuclear fuel while allowing the working mass
to be used as exhaust. The engineering needed for this role was also used for a variety of other "down to earth" purposes, including centrifuges and pumps. von Ohain would later use the basic mass-flow techniques of these designs to create a fascinating jet engine with no moving parts, in which the airflow through the engine created a stable vortex that acted as the compressor and turbine.
This interest in mass-flow also led von Ohain to research magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD) for power generation, noting that the hot gases from a coal-fired plant could be used to extract power from their speed when exiting the combustion chamber, remaining hot enough to then power a conventional steam turbine. Thus an MHD generator could extract further power from the coal, and lead to greater efficiencies. Unfortunately this design has proven difficult to build due to a lack of proper materials, namely high-temperature non-magnetic materials that are also able to withstand the chemically active exhaust. Ohain also investigated other power related concepts.
He also invented the idea of the "jet wing", in which air from the compressor of a jet engine is bled off to large "augmented" vents in the wings to provide lift for VTOL
aircraft. A small amount of high-pressure air is blown into a venturi, which in turn sucks a much larger volume of air along with it, thus leading to "thrust augmentation". The concept was used in the Rockwell XFV-12 experimental aircraft, although the market interest in VTOL aircraft was short-lived. He participated in several other patents.
Ohain was the influence in shifting the mind of his student at WP-AFB
Paul Bevilaqua
from math to engineering, which later gave Paul the ability to invent the Rolls-Royce LiftSystem
for the JSF F35B
STOVL
: "in school I learned how to move the pieces, and Hans taught me how to play chess". Ohain also showed Bevilaqua "what those TS-diagrams
actually mean".
During his career, von Ohain won many engineering and management awards, including (among others) the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
(AIAA) Goddard Astronautics Award, the United States Air Force
Exceptional Civilian Service Award, Systems Command Award for Exceptional Civilian Service, the Eugene M. Zuckert Management Award, the Air Force Special Achievement Award, and just before he retired, the Citation of Honor. In 1984–85, Ohain served as the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History
, a competitive senior fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum
. In 1991 von Ohain and Whittle were jointly awarded the Charles Stark Draper Prize
for their work on turbojet engines.
He retired from Wright-Patterson in 1979 and took up an associate professor position at the nearby University of Dayton
. He later moved to Melbourne
, Florida
with his wife Hanny, where he died in 1998. He is survived by four children.
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
engineer, one of the inventors of jet propulsion
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...
.
Frank Whittle
Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force engineer officer. He is credited with independently inventing the turbojet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a British Royal Air...
, who patented in 1930 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and Hans von Ohain, who patented in 1936 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, developed the concept independently during the late 1930s. Although credit for the first successfully run turbojet is given to Whittle, Ohain's design was the first to power an all-jet aircraft, the first prototype of the Heinkel He 178
Heinkel He 178
|-See also:*List of firsts in aviation-Bibliography:* Warsitz, Lutz: The First Jet Pilot - The Story of German Test Pilot Erich Warsitz, Pen and Sword Books Ltd., England, 2009, ISBN 9781844158188.-External links:...
in late August 1939. Although none of his designs entered production, his contributions to the development of the jet engine in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
are invaluable. After the war, he met his British counterpart, Frank Whittle
Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force engineer officer. He is credited with independently inventing the turbojet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a British Royal Air...
, and the two became good friends.
Early life and jet development
Born in DessauDessau
Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...
, Germany, he earned a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and Aerodynamics
Aerodynamics
Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with studying the motion of air, particularly when it interacts with a moving object. Aerodynamics is a subfield of fluid dynamics and gas dynamics, with much theory shared between them. Aerodynamics is often used synonymously with gas dynamics, with...
from the University of Göttingen, then one of the major centers for aeronautical research, and was lectured by Ludwig Prandtl. During his studies, in 1933 he conceived of "an engine that did not require a propeller." After receiving his degree in 1935, Ohain became the junior assistant of Robert Wichard Pohl
Robert Pohl
Robert Wichard Pohl was a German physicist.In 1938 Robert Pohl and Rudolf Hilsch, from the University of Göttingen, built the first functioning solid-state amplifier using salt as the semiconductor ....
, then director of the Physical Institute of the University.
In 1936, while working for Pohl, von Ohain earned a patent on his version of jet engines, Process and Apparatus for Producing Airstreams for Propelling Airplanes. Unlike Frank Whittle
Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force engineer officer. He is credited with independently inventing the turbojet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a British Royal Air...
's design, von Ohain's design used a centrifugal compressor and turbine placed very close together, back to back, with the flame cans wrapped around the outside of the assembly.
While working at the University, von Ohain often took his sports car to be serviced at a local garage, Bartles and Becker. Here he met an automotive engineer, Max Hahn, and eventually arranged for him to build a model to his design, which cost about 1,000 DM. The resulting model was even larger in diameter than Whittle's 1937 fully working engine, although much shorter along the thrust axis. When the model was complete he took it to the University for testing, but ran into serious problems with combustion stability. Often the fuel would not burn inside the flame cans, and would instead be blown through the turbine where it would ignite in the air, shooting flames out the back and overheating the electric motor powering the compressor.
Heinkel
In February 1936, Pohl wrote to Ernst HeinkelErnst Heinkel
Dr. Ernst Heinkel was a German aircraft designer, manufacturer, Wehrwirtschaftführer in the Third Reich, and member of the Nazi party. His company Heinkel Flugzeugwerke produced the Heinkel He 178, the world's first turbojet aircraft and jet plane, and the Heinkel He 176, the first rocket aircraft...
on behalf of von Ohain, telling him of the design and its possibilities. Heinkel arranged a meeting where his engineers were able to grill von Ohain for hours, during which he flatly stated that the current "garage engine" would never work but there was nothing wrong with the concept as a whole. The engineers were convinced, and in April, von Ohain and Hahn were set up at Heinkel's works at the Marienehe airfield outside Rostock
Rostock
Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...
, in Warnemünde
Warnemünde
Warnemünde is a sea resort and northmost district of Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, situated on the Baltic Sea in the northeast of Germany at the estuary of the river Warnow.- History :...
.
Once moved, a study was made of the airflow in the model, and several improvements made over a two month period. Much happier with the results, they decided to produce a completely new engine incorporating all of these changes, running on hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
gas supplied by an external pressurised source. The resulting Heinkel-Strahltriebwerk 1 (HeS 1
Heinkel HeS 1
The Heinkel HeS 1 was Germany's first jet engine, which was a stationary test item that ran on hydrogen.-History:In 1933, Hans von Ohain wrote his PhD thesis at the University of Göttingen on the topic of an optical microphone that could be used to record sound directly to film. Siemens bought the...
), German for Heinkel Jet Engine 1, was built by hand-picking some of the best machinists in the company, much to the chagrin of the shop-floor supervisors. Hahn, meanwhile, worked on the combustion problem, an area he had some experience in.
The engine was extremely simple, made largely of sheet metal. Construction started late in the summer of 1936, and completed in March 1937. It ran two weeks later on hydrogen, but the high temperature exhaust led to considerable "burning" of the metal. The tests were otherwise successful, and in September the combustors were replaced and the engine was run on gasoline for the first time. Von Ohain had at last, albeit 5 months after Whittle, run a self-contained turbojet. Running on gasoline proved to clog up the combustors, so Hahn designed a new version based on his soldering torch, which proved to work much better. Although the engine was never intended to be a flight-quality design, it proved beyond a doubt that the basic concept was workable. Von Ohain had caught up with Whittle at last. From now on, with vastly more funding and industry support, Von Ohain would soon overtake Whittle and forge ahead.
While work on the HeS 1 continued, the team had already moved on to the design of a flight-quality design, the HeS 3
Heinkel HeS 3
The Heinkel HeS 3 was the world's first operational jet engine to power an aircraft. Designed by Hans von Ohain while working at Heinkel, the engine first flew as the primary power of the Heinkel He 178, piloted by Erich Warsitz on 27 August 1939...
. The major differences were the use of machined compressor and turbine stages, replacing the bent and folded sheet metal, and a re-arrangement of the layout to reduce the cross-sectional area of the engine as a whole by placing the flame cans in an extended gap between the compressor and turbine. The original design proved to have a turbine area that was simply too small to work efficiently, and increasing the size of the turbine meant the flame cans no longer fit in the gap correctly. A new design, the HeS 3b
Heinkel HeS 3
The Heinkel HeS 3 was the world's first operational jet engine to power an aircraft. Designed by Hans von Ohain while working at Heinkel, the engine first flew as the primary power of the Heinkel He 178, piloted by Erich Warsitz on 27 August 1939...
was proposed, which moved the flame cans out of the gap and modified their shape to allow the widest part of the cans to lie in front of the compressor's outer rim. In the 3b, compressed air was piped forward to the combustion chambers, and from there the now-hot air flowed rearward into the turbine inlet. While not as small as the original HeS 3 design, the 3b was nevertheless fairly compact. The 3b first ran July 1939 (some references say May), and was air-tested under the Heinkel He 118
Heinkel He 118
-See also:-References:* Green, William. Warplanes of the Third Reich. New York: Doubleday, 1972. ISBN 0-385-05782-2....
dive bomber
Dive bomber
A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target reduces the distance the bomb has to fall, which is the primary factor in determining the accuracy of the drop...
prototype. The original 3b engine soon burned out, but a second one was nearing completion at about the same time as a new test airframe, the Heinkel He 178
Heinkel He 178
|-See also:*List of firsts in aviation-Bibliography:* Warsitz, Lutz: The First Jet Pilot - The Story of German Test Pilot Erich Warsitz, Pen and Sword Books Ltd., England, 2009, ISBN 9781844158188.-External links:...
, which first flew on August 27, 1939, the first jet-powered aircraft to fly by test pilot
Test pilot
A test pilot is an aviator who flies new and modified aircraft in specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques or FTTs, allowing the results to be measured and the design to be evaluated....
Erich Warsitz
Erich Warsitz
Erich Warsitz was a German test pilot of the 1930s. He held the rank of Flight-Captain in the Luftwaffe and was selected by the Reich Air Ministry as chief test pilot at Peenemünde West...
.
Work started immediately on larger versions, first the HeS 6 which was simply a larger HeS 3b, and then on a new design known as the HeS 8 which once again re-arranged the overall layout. The 8 separated the compressor and turbine, connecting them with a long shaft, placing a single annular combustion chamber between them, replacing the individual flame cans. It was intended to install the engine on the Heinkel He 280
Heinkel He 280
The Heinkel He 280 was the first turbojet-powered fighter aircraft in the world. It was inspired by Ernst Heinkel's emphasis on research into high-speed flight and built on the company's experience with the He 178 jet prototype. A combination of technical and political factors led to it being...
fighter
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
, but the airframe development progressed much more smoothly than the engine, and had to be used in gliding tests while work on the engine continued. A flight-quality HeS 8 was installed in late March 1941, followed by the first flight on April 2. Three days later the aircraft was demonstrated for a party of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and RLM
Reich Air Ministry
thumb|300px|The Ministry of Aviation, December 1938The Ministry of Aviation was a government department during the period of Nazi Germany...
officials, all of whom were impressed. Full development funds soon followed.
By this point there were a number of turbojet developments taking place in Germany. Heinkel was so impressed by the concept that he had brought on Adolph Müller from Junkers, who was developing an axial compressor
Axial compressor
Axial compressors are rotating, airfoil-based compressors in which the working fluid principally flows parallel to the axis of rotation. This is in contrast with other rotating compressors such as centrifugal, axi-centrifugal and mixed-flow compressors where the air may enter axially but will have...
-powered design, renamed as the Heinkel HeS 30
Heinkel HeS 30
-Further reading:*German Jet Engine and Gas Turbine Development 1930-1945, Antony Kay, Airlife Publishing, 2002....
. Müller had left Junkers after they purchased the Junkers Motoren company, who had their own project under way, which by this time was known as the Junkers Jumo 004
Junkers Jumo 004
The Jumo 004 was the world's first turbojet engine in production and operational use, and the first successful axial compressor jet engine ever built. Some 8,000 units were manufactured by Junkers in Germany during late World War II and powered the operational Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter,...
. Meanwhile BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
was making good progress with their own design, the BMW 003.
By early 1942 the HeS 8, officially the 109-001 (HeS 001), was still not progressing well. Meanwhile Müller's HeS 30, officially the 109-006 (HeS 006), was developing much more quickly. Both engines were still some time from being ready for production, however, while the 003 and 004 appeared to be ready to go. In early 1942 the director of jet development at the RLM, Helmut Schelp
Helmut Schelp
Helmut Schelp was the director of "advanced" engine development at the RLM's T-Amt technical division leading up to and during World War II. He used his office to fund a widespread program in jet engine development, which led to many of the engine concepts still used today...
, refused further funding for both designs, and ordered Heinkel to work on a new "pet project" of his own, eventually becoming the Heinkel HeS 011. Although this was the first of Schelp's "Class II" engines to start working well, production had still not started when the war ended. Work continued on the HeS 8 for some time, but it was eventually abandoned in the spring of 1943.
After the war
In 1947 von Ohain was brought to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II...
and went to work for the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties in the state of Ohio. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wright Field and Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot. Patterson Field is located approximately...
. In 1956 he was made the Director of the Air Force Aeronautical Research Laboratory and by 1975 he was the Chief Scientist of the Aero Propulsion Laboratory there.
During his work at Wright-Patterson, von Ohain continued his own personal work on various topics. In the early 1960s he did a fair amount of work on the design of gas core reactor rocket
Gas core reactor rocket
Gas core reactor rockets are a conceptual type of rocket that is propelled by the exhausted coolant of a gaseous fission reactor. The nuclear fission reactor core may be either a gas or plasma...
s which would retain the nuclear fuel while allowing the working mass
Working mass
Working mass is a mass against which a system operates in order to produce acceleration.In the case of a rocket, for example, the reaction mass is the fuel shot backwards to provide propulsion. All acceleration requires an exchange of momentum, which can be thought of as the "unit of movement"...
to be used as exhaust. The engineering needed for this role was also used for a variety of other "down to earth" purposes, including centrifuges and pumps. von Ohain would later use the basic mass-flow techniques of these designs to create a fascinating jet engine with no moving parts, in which the airflow through the engine created a stable vortex that acted as the compressor and turbine.
This interest in mass-flow also led von Ohain to research magnetohydrodynamics
Magnetohydrodynamics
Magnetohydrodynamics is an academic discipline which studies the dynamics of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such fluids include plasmas, liquid metals, and salt water or electrolytes...
(MHD) for power generation, noting that the hot gases from a coal-fired plant could be used to extract power from their speed when exiting the combustion chamber, remaining hot enough to then power a conventional steam turbine. Thus an MHD generator could extract further power from the coal, and lead to greater efficiencies. Unfortunately this design has proven difficult to build due to a lack of proper materials, namely high-temperature non-magnetic materials that are also able to withstand the chemically active exhaust. Ohain also investigated other power related concepts.
He also invented the idea of the "jet wing", in which air from the compressor of a jet engine is bled off to large "augmented" vents in the wings to provide lift for VTOL
VTOL
A vertical take-off and landing aircraft is one that can hover, take off and land vertically. This classification includes fixed-wing aircraft as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors...
aircraft. A small amount of high-pressure air is blown into a venturi, which in turn sucks a much larger volume of air along with it, thus leading to "thrust augmentation". The concept was used in the Rockwell XFV-12 experimental aircraft, although the market interest in VTOL aircraft was short-lived. He participated in several other patents.
Ohain was the influence in shifting the mind of his student at WP-AFB
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties in the state of Ohio. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wright Field and Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot. Patterson Field is located approximately...
Paul Bevilaqua
Paul Bevilaqua
Paul Bevilaqua is an aeronautics engineer at Lockheed Martin in California. In 1990, he invented the lift fan for the Joint Strike Fighter F-35B along with fellow Skunk Works engineer Paul Shumpert.-Life and career:...
from math to engineering, which later gave Paul the ability to invent the Rolls-Royce LiftSystem
Rolls-Royce LiftSystem
The Rolls-Royce LiftSystem is an innovative propulsion system designed for use in the STOVL variant of the F-35 Lightning II developed during the Joint Strike Fighter Program...
for the JSF F35B
F-35 Lightning II
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine, fifth generation multirole fighters under development to perform ground attack, reconnaissance, and air defense missions with stealth capability...
STOVL
STOVL
STOVL is an acronym for short take off and vertical landing.This is the ability of some aircraft to take off from a short runway or take off vertically if it does not have a very heavy payload and land vertically...
: "in school I learned how to move the pieces, and Hans taught me how to play chess". Ohain also showed Bevilaqua "what those TS-diagrams
Temperature entropy diagram
A temperature entropy diagram, or T-s diagram, is used in thermodynamics to visualize changes to temperature and specific entropy during a thermodynamic process or cycle. It is a useful and common tool, particularly because it helps to visualize the heat transfer during a process...
actually mean".
During his career, von Ohain won many engineering and management awards, including (among others) the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is the professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA was founded in 1963 from the merger of two earlier societies: the American Rocket Society , founded in 1930 as the American Interplanetary Society , and the Institute...
(AIAA) Goddard Astronautics Award, the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
Exceptional Civilian Service Award, Systems Command Award for Exceptional Civilian Service, the Eugene M. Zuckert Management Award, the Air Force Special Achievement Award, and just before he retired, the Citation of Honor. In 1984–85, Ohain served as the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History
Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History
The Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History, also known as the Lindbergh Chair, is a one-year senior fellowship hosted by the U.S. National Air and Space Museum , to assist a scholar in the research and composition of a book about aerospace history...
, a competitive senior fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum
National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and...
. In 1991 von Ohain and Whittle were jointly awarded the Charles Stark Draper Prize
Charles Stark Draper Prize
The National Academy of Engineering annually awards the Charles Stark Draper Prize, which is given for the advancement of engineering and the education of the public about engineering. It is one of three prizes that constitute the "Nobel Prizes of Engineering" - the others being the Academy's Russ...
for their work on turbojet engines.
He retired from Wright-Patterson in 1979 and took up an associate professor position at the nearby University of Dayton
University of Dayton
The University of Dayton is a private Roman Catholic university operated by the Society of Mary located in Dayton, Ohio...
. He later moved to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
with his wife Hanny, where he died in 1998. He is survived by four children.
External links
- Hans von Ohain, U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.