Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T07:53:44.527Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gustave Eiffel - pioneer of experimental aerodynamics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

J. Black
J. Black*
Affiliation:
University of Bath
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Travellers flying into Paris would not connect the famous 100-year-old landmark, the Eiffel Tower, an immense and complex structure of open ironwork, 300 m high, with the aerodynamics of their streamlined modern aeroplane. The unexpected association between the two is Gustave Eiffel — ‘le magicién de fer’ — builder of the Tower in 1889, who pioneered much of the experimental research needed by the designers of the first aeroplanes, in the period from 1903, when he was in his ‘70s, until the time of his death aged 90 in 1923.

Post-Second World War generations of aerodynamicists are also probably unaware that Eiffel was the source of many of the basic results they use, since no modern textbooks refer to his researches of 70 years ago; yet nearly half of his obituary notice in the Times of 29 December 1923, headed ‘M. Eiffel — A Great Engineer’ referred to his aeronautical research using his Tower and his wind-tunnels. In order to appreciate how Eiffel came to embark on his new activities at such a late age we must look briefly at his first career, which established him as one of the most distinguished structural engineers of the 19th century, and the political scandal which brought it to an end.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 94 , Issue 937 , September 1990 , pp. 231 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1990 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Harriss, J. The Eiffel Tower, Elek, P., London, 1976.Google Scholar
2. Loyrette, H. Gustave Eiffel, Rizzoli, New York, 1985.Google Scholar
3. Lewis, G. M. ‘Gustave Eiffel — the career of an entrepreneur’, Struct Eng, July 1989, 67, (13).Google Scholar
4. Eiffel, G. Recherches expérimentales sur la Résistance de l'Air exécutées a la Tour Eiffel, Maretheux, Paris, 1907.Google Scholar
5. Eiffel, G. La Résistance de l'Air— Examen des Formules et des Expériences, Dunod, Paris, 1910.Google Scholar
6. Eiffel, G. La Résistance de l'Air et l'Aviation — Expériences effectuées au laboratoire du Champ-de-Mars, Dunod, Paris, 1910 (second edition, Paris, 1911).Google Scholar
7. Hunsaker, J. C. Resistance of the Air and Aviation — (translation), Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1913. Constable, London, 1913.Google Scholar
8. Randers-Pehrson, N. Pioneer Wind Tunnels, Smithsonian Misc Collections, 1935, 93, (4).Google Scholar
9. Eiffel, G. Nouvelles Recherches sur la Résistance de l'Air et l'Aviation faite au laboratoire d'Auteuil, Dunod, Paris, 1914 (2nd edition, 1919).Google Scholar
10. de Villamil, R. Resistance of Air, Spon, London, 1917.Google Scholar
11. Eiffel, G. Résume des Principaux Travaux exécutées pendant la Guerre au Laboratoire Aérodynamique Eiffel 1915–18, Libre Aeronautique, Paris, 1919.Google Scholar
12. Eiffel, G. Études sur l'Helice Aerienne faites au Laboratoire Auteuil. Librairee Aeronautique, Paris, 1921.Google Scholar
13. Lanchester, F. W. The Flying Machine from an Engineering Standpoint, Constable, London, 1918.Google Scholar
14. Cowley, W. L. and Levy, H. Aeronautics in Theory and Experiment, Arnold, E., London, 1918.Google Scholar
15. Prandtl, L. and Tietjens, O. G. Applied Hydro- and Aero-Mechanics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1934.Google Scholar
16. Durand, W. F. (ed.), Aerodynamic Theory, Springer, Berlin, 1934–1936 (reprinted, Dover, 1963).Google Scholar
17. Bairstow, L. Applied Aerodynamics, Longmans Green, London, 1919 (second edition, 1939).Google Scholar
18. von Mises, R. Theory of Flight, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1945.Google Scholar