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Historical Note: Prandtl—The Man
The modern science of aerodynamics rests on a strong fundamental foundation, a large percentage of which was established in one place by one man—at the University of Gottingen by Ludwig Prandtl. Prandtl never received a Noble Prize, although his contributions to aerodynamics and fluid mechanics are felt by many to be of that caliber. Throughout this book, you will encounter his name in conjunction with major advances in aerodynamics: thin airfoil theory in Chapter 4, finite-wing theory in Chapter 5, supersonic shock – and expansion-wave theory in Chapter 9, compressibility corrections in Chapter 11, and what may be his most important contribution, namely, the boundary-layer concept in Chapter 17. Who was this man who has had such a major impact on fluid dynamics? Let us take a closer look.
Ludwig Prandtl was bom on February 4, 1874, in Freising, Bavaria. His father was Alexander Prandtl, a professor of surveying and engineering at the agricultural college at Weihenstephan, near Freising. Although three children were born into the Prandtl family, two died at birth, and Ludwig grew up as an only child. His mother, the former Magdalene Ostermann, had a protracted illness, and partly as a result of this, Prandtl became very close to his father. At an early age, Prandtl became interested in his father’s books on physics, machinery, and instmments. Much of Prandtl’s remarkable ability to go intuitively to the heart of a physical problem can be traced to his environment at home as a child, where his father, a great lover of nature, induced Ludwig to observe natural phenomena and to reflect on them.
In 1894, Prandtl began his formal scientific studies at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, where his principal teacher was the well-known mechanics professor, August Foppl. Six years later, he graduated from the University of Munich with a Ph. D., with Foppl as his advisor. However, by this time Prandtl was alone, his father having died in 1896 and his mother in 1898.
By 1900, Prandtl had not done any work or shown any interest in fluid mechanics. Indeed, his Ph. D. thesis at Munich was in solid mechanics, dealing with unstable elastic equilibrium in which bending and distortion acted together. (It is not generally recognized by people in fluid dynamics that Prandtl continued his interest and research in solid mechanics through most of his life—this work is eclipsed, however, by his major contributions to the study of fluid flow.) However, soon after graduation from
Munich, Prandtl had his first major encounter with fluid mechanics. Joining the Nuremburg works of the Maschinenfabrick Augsburg as an engineer, Prandtl worked in an office designing mechanical equipment for the new factory. He was made responsible for redesigning an apparatus for removing machine shavings by suction. Finding no reliable information in the scientific literature about the fluid mechanics of suction, Prandtl arranged his own experiments to answer a few fundamental questions about the flow. The result of this work was bis new design for shavings’ cleaners. The apparatus was modified with pipes of improved shape and size, and carried out satisfactory operation at one-third its original power consumption. Prandtl’s contributions in fluid mechanics had begun.
One year later, in 1901, he became Professor of Mechanics in the Mathematical Engineering Department at the Technische Hochschule in Hanover. (Please note that in Germany a “technical high school” is equivalent to a technical university in the United States.) It was at Hanover that Prandtl enhanced and continued his new-found interest in fluid mechanics. He also developed his boundary-layer theory and became interested in supersonic flow through nozzles at Hanover. In 1904, Prandtl delivered his famous paper on the concept of the boundary layer to the Third Congress on Mathematicians at Heidelberg. Entitled “Uber Flussigkeitsbewegung bei sehr kleiner Reibung,” Prandtl’s Heidelberg paper established the basis for most modem calculations of skin friction, heat transfer, and flow separation (see Chapters 15 to 20). From that time on, the star of Prandtl was to rise meteorically. Later that year, he moved to the prestigious University of Gottingen to become Director of the Institute for Technical Physics, later to be renamed Applied Mechanics. Prandtl spent the remainder of his life at Gottingen, building his laboratory into the world’s greatest aerodynamic research center of the 1904-1930 time period.
At Gottingen, during 1905-1908 Prandtl carried out numerous experiments on supersonic flow through nozzles and developed oblique shock – and expansion-wave theory (see Chapter 9). He took the first photographs of the supersonic flow through nozzles, using a special schlieren optical system (see chapter 4 of Reference 21). From 1910 to 1920, he devoted most of his efforts to low-speed aerodynamics, principally airfoil and wing theory, developing the famous lifting-line theory for finite wings (see Section 5.3). Prandtl returned to high-speed flows in the 1920s, during which he contributed to the evolution of the famous Prandtl-Glauert compressibility correction (see Sections 11.4 and 11.11).
By the 1930s, Prandtl was recognized worldwide as the “elder statesman” of fluid dynamics. Although he continued to do research in various areas, including structural mechanics and meteorology, his “Nobel Prize-level” contributions to fluid dynamics had all been made. Prandtl remained at Gottingen throughout the turmoil of World War II, engrossed in his work and seemingly insulated from the intense political and physical disruptions brought about by Nazi Germany. In fact, the German Air Ministry provided Prandtl’s laboratory with new equipment and financial support. Prandtl’s attitude at the end of the war is reflected in his comments to a U. S. Army interrogation team which swept through Gottingen in 1945; he complained about bomb damage to the roof of his house, and he asked how the Americans planned to support his current and future research. Prandtl was 70 at the time and was still going strong. However, the fate of Prandtl’s laboratory at this time is summed up in the words of Irmgard Flugge-Lotz and Wilhelm Flugge, colleagues of Prandtl, who wrote 28 years later in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics (Vol. 5, 1973):
World War II swept over all of us. At its end some of the research equipment was dismantled, and most of the research staff was scattered with the winds. Many are now in this country (the United States) and in England, some have returned. The seeds sown by Prandtl have sprouted in many places, and there are now many “second growth” Gottingers who do not even know that they are.
What type of person was Prandtl? By all accounts he was a gracious man, studious, likable, friendly, and totally focused on those things that interested him. He enjoyed music and was an accomplished pianist. Figure 5.47 shows a rather introspective man busily at work. One of Prandtl’s most famous students, Theodore von Karman, wrote in his autobiography The Wind and Beyond (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1967) that Prandtl bordered on being naive. A favorite story along these lines is that, in 1909, Prandtl decided that he should be married, but he did not
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Figure 5.47 Ludwig Prandtl (1875-1953). |
know quite what to do. He finally wrote to Mrs. Foppl, the wife of his respected teacher, asking permission to marry one of her two daughters. Prandtl and Foppl’s daughters were acquainted, but nothing more than that. Moreover, Prandtl did not stipulate which daughter. The Foppl’s made a family decision that Prandtl should marry the elder daughter, Gertrude. The marriage took place, leading to a happy relationship. The Prandtl’s had two daughters, bom in 1914 and 1917.
Prandtl was considered a tedious lecturer because he could hardly make a statement without qualifying it. However, he attracted excellent students who later went on to distinguish themselves in fluid mechanics—such as Jakob Ackeret in Zurich, Switzerland, Adolf Busemann in Germany, and Theodore von Karman at Aachen, Germany, and later at Cal Tech in the United States.
Prandtl died in 1953. He was clearly the father of modern aerodynamics—a monumental figure in fluid dynamics. His impact will be felt for centuries to come.
5.9 Summary
Return to the chapter road map in Figure 5.5, and review the straightforward path we have taken during the development of finite-wing theory. Make certain that you feel comfortable with the flow of ideas before proceeding further.
A brief summary of the important results of this chapter follows:
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