Adolf Meyer

Adolf Meyer (c1880-1965)

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1965 Obituary

"Adolf Meyer died at his home in Kusnacht on the Lake of Zurich on November 10th, only a few days after his eighty-fifth birthday.

He graduated at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (E.T.H.) in 1903 as an electrical engineer and was first assistant to one of the professors there. During that time he also attended the lectures given by Professor A. Stodola, who aroused Meyer's particular interest in thermodynamics, so much so that he enthusiastically decided to devote himself more and more to this side of engineering science. In 1907 he was engaged by Brown Boveri in Baden, Switzerland, with which company he remained for thirty-nine years. When he retired in 1946, he became a director of the Company and held this position for the following ten years.

Meyer was one of the most outstanding personalities in Swiss engineering and eventually became an internationally recognised authority in the field of thermal machines, e.g. steam and gas turbines, compressors and blowers, &c. Above all, he was instrumental in the development of the Brown Boveri steam turbine which, at the beginning of his career, was being built for unit capacities of not more than about 5 000kW, for maximum pressures of the order of 200 lb/in2/gauge and temperatures below 600°F. All along, Meyer strongly advocated the increase of pressures and temperatures, and for the purpose of efficiently utilising the increased heat drop, he introduced the multi-cylinder turbine, in particular the three cylinder turbine which subsequently found universal application.

Recalling the activities of Adolf Meyer, we should also mention his special efforts leading to the successful construction of the industrial gas turbine and the supercharger. His work was officially recognised on several occasions. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa by the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New York in 1935, and again in 1941 by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. On two occasions the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London presented him with the George Stephenson medal for the best technical innovation of the year; in 1939 for the first successful application of the gas turbine for power generation, and in 1943 for introducing the first gas turbine locomotive. Only a year ago a representative of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers personally presented him with a pin with the golden gas turbine wheel.

Meyer was an excellent and exemplary team leader and all those who had the privilege of working with him will always remember him as such."

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