Product Code Database
Jakob Ackeret, FRAeS (17 March 1898 – 27 March 1981) was a Swiss people aeronautical engineer. He is widely viewed as one of the foremost aeronautics experts of the 20th century.
He became a professor of Aerodynamics at ETH Zurich in 1931, where Wernher von Braun was one of his students.
When he was at ETH Zurich, he actively participated in the solution of practical engineering problems, such as the design of variable-pitch propellers for ships and airplanes. His most important invention was the gas turbine with a closed circuit. He made the invention together with C. Keller.
Ackeret also contributed significantly to research in supersonic aerodynamics. He led the initial work on calculating the lift and drag on a supersonic airfoilAckeret, J. (1925). Luftkräfte auf Flügel, die mit größerer als Schallgeschwindigkeit bewegt werden. Zeitschrift für Flugtechnik und Motorluftschiffahrt (16), 72-74. and he proposed the designation of the "Mach number" for multiples of the speed of sound."Aeronautical research in Germany: from Lilienthal until today", Volume 147 by Ernst-Heinrich Hirschel, Horst Prem, Gero Madelung On the 5th Volta Conference in Rome in 1935 Ackeret was planning to talk about supersonic lift, but because of "sensitive developments" for the Luftwaffe Adolf Busemann arranged their topics to be swapped (his paper about swept wings, which seemed an academic curioisuty back then, later became seminal) and presented a design for a supersonic wind tunnel.
Ackeret was awarded the Ludwig-Prandtl-Ring from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics) for "outstanding contribution in the field of aerospace engineering" in 1965.
In 1976, he was elected foreign associate member of the American National Academy of Engineering for his "contributions to the understanding of high-speed and supersonic fluid mechanics, leading to significant improvements to the science of flight".
|
|
