Just to put the "invention" of the gas turbine into perspective...
- 1791: A patent was given to John Barber, an Englishman, for the first true gas turbine. His invention had most of the elements present in the modern day gas turbines. The turbine was designed to power a horseless carriage.[5][6]
- 1899: Charles Gordon Curtis patented the first gas turbine engine in the US.[7]
- 1900: Sanford Alexander Moss submitted a thesis on gas turbines. In 1903, Moss became an engineer for General Electric's Steam Turbine Department in Lynn, Massachusetts.[8] While there, he applied some of his concepts in the development of the turbocharger.[8]
- 1903: A Norwegian, Ęgidius Elling, built the first gas turbine that was able to produce more power than needed to run its own components, which was considered an achievement in a time when knowledge about aerodynamics was limited. Using rotary compressors and turbines it produced 11 hp.[9]
- 1904: A gas turbine engine designed by Franz Stolze, based on his earlier 1873 patent application, is built and tested in Berlin. The Stolze gas turbine was too inefficient to sustain its own operation.[3]
- 1906: The Armengaud-Lemale gas turbine tested in France. This was a relatively large machine which included 25 stage centrifugal compressor designed by Auguste Rateau and built by the Brown Boveri Company. The gas turbine could sustain its own air compression but was too inefficient to produce useful work.[3]
- 1910: Holzwarth gas turbine (pulse combustion) achieved 150 kW (200 hp).[3]
- 1920s The practical theory of gas flow through passages was developed into the more formal (and applicable to turbines) theory of gas flow past airfoils by A. A. Griffith resulting in the publishing in 1926 of An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design. Working testbed designs of axial turbines suitable for driving a propeller were developed by the Royal Aeronautical Establishment.[10]
- 1930: Having found no interest from the RAF for his idea, Frank Whittle patented[11] the design for a centrifugal gas turbine for jet propulsion. The first successful test run of his engine occurred in England in April 1937.[12]
- 1932: The Brown Boveri Company of Switzerland starts selling axial compressor and turbine turbosets as part of the turbocharged steam generating Velox boiler. Following the gas turbine principle, the steam evaporation tubes are arranged within the gas turbine combustion chamber; the first Velox plant was erected in Mondeville, Calvados, France.[13]
- 1936: The first constant flow industrial gas turbine is commissioned by the Brown Boveri Company and goes into service at Sun Oil's Marcus Hookrefinery in Pennsylvania, US.[14]
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