BAUMANN K

SWITZERLAND (see also List of Individuals)

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18.4.1884 Villingen/CH - 14.7.1971 Ilkley/UK

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Karl Baumann graduated as a mechanical engineer from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH, Zurich in 1906 and continued there for one year as an assistant of Aurel Stodola (1859-1942). Then, he went as a research engineer to Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg MAN, Augsburg for two years and came to England in 1909, where he joined the British Westinghouse Company, Manchester, from 1912 as a chief engineer of the Engine Department. This firm developed into the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company MV where Baumann served as the chief engineer and in 1929 was appointed Director and Member of the Executive Board until retirement in 1949. He was awarded the Honorary Doctorate from ETH in 1951 and Honorary Membership from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1954.

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Baumann was a pioneer of increased turbine entry temperatures and in 1916 introduced the multi-stage regenerative feed-water heating system, referred to as the Baumann turbine multi-exhaust. He designed the Battersea A-station in 1933 with the largest single-axis unit then in Europe. From 1938, he was responsible for the first axial-flow aircraft propulsion gas-turbines. The jet engines of the 1990s owe much to the engines produced by MV around 1940. In 1920, the effect of steam turbines was around 20 MW, as compared to 1,000 MW around 1950. Baumann developed a low pressure turbine unit with a double steam exhaust for better steam expansion and therefore a higher steam velocity. He also proposed to use a definite steam wetness for the optimum turbine efficiency. The Baumann number is still used by experts of steam turbines. Baumann was elected Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and was awarded its Thomas Hawksley Medal, and the James Clayton Prize in 1948, the year he presented the Thomas Hawksley Lecture. Many of his ideas and introductions withstood the test of time, being based on his wide understanding of fundamentals.

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_{Bärtsch, C. (2006). Karl Baumann. Bildarchiv ETH-Bibliothek: Zürich. P}

_{Baumann, K. (1928). Discussion to The general trend of modern development in steam-turbine practice. Engineering Conference ICE 2: 65-80.}

_{Baumann, K. (1930). Some consideration affecting the future development of the steam cycle. Proc. Institution of Mechanical Engineers 119: 1305-1396.}

_{Day, L., McNeil, I. (1996). Baumann, Karl. Biographical dictionary of the history of technology: 47. Routledge: London.}

_{Flatt, F. (1971). Dr. Karl Baumann. Schweizerische Bauzeitung 89(36): 915.}