Beauchamp Tower

Infobox Engineer

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name = Beauchamp Tower
nationality = British
birth_date = January 13 1845
birth_place = Moreton, Essex
death_date = December 31 1904
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significant_advance = Hydrodynamic lubrication
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Beauchamp Tower (January 13 1845 – December 31 1904) was an English inventor and railway engineer who is chiefly known for his discovery of full-film or hydrodynamic lubrication.

Early life

Beauchamp 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 pupillage.

Career

Tower left the Armstrong Works in April 1866 to take charge of the construction of a number of iron steamers at the Tyne Iron Works. In 1869 Tower became assistant to William Froude, and in the course of their work, he invented a speed indicator used by ships in the Royal Navy. He also served as an assistant to Lord Rayleigh in his classic experiments on sound and it seems likely that Lord Rayleigh recommended Tower to the Institute of Mechanical Engineering to carry out his 1882 friction experiments.

In 1882 Tower was appointed by the Institute of Mechanical Engineering to study high-speed railway engine bearings and demonstrated that with a suitable supply of lubricating oil the surfaces of the bearings were separated by a continuous film of lubricant which prevented them from ever coming into contact. This fact is of crucial importance to the design of high-speed machinery.

Tower also constructed an unconventional spherical steam engine which was praised by contemporary experts and saw service powering carriage lighting dynamos on the locomotives of the Great Eastern Railway.

Tower also invented a slide-rule whose logarithmic scales were printed on metallic tapes, which were wound and unwound from one roller to another.

In 1886 he was involved with Henry Marc Brunel in working on Tower Bridge, London.

In 1889 Tower devised a gyroscopic system to provide a steady platform for the firing of guns similar to that developed by Sir Henry Bessemer to stabilise a ship's saloon.

External links

* [http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/POWER/tower/tower.htm Illustrations and description of Tower's spherical steam engine]