Om oss

Gustaf de Laval was born at Orsa in Dalarna in the Swedish De Laval Huguenot family. He enrolled at the Institute of Technology in Stockholm (later the Royal Institute of Technology) in 1863, receiving a degree in mechanical engineering in 1866, after which he matriculated at Uppsala University in 1867. He was then employed by the Swedish mining company, Stora Kopparberg. From there he returned to Uppsala University and completed his doctorate in 1872. He was further employed in Kloster Iron works in Husby parish, Sweden.[1] Gustaf de Laval was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1886. He was a successful engineer and businessman. He also held the national office, being elected to Swedish parliament, from 1888–1890 and later became a member of senate. De Laval died in Stockholm in 1913 at the age of 67.[1]

Contributions [edit]

de Laval nozzle [edit]

In 1882 he introduced his concept of an impulse steam turbine[2] and in 1887 built a small steam turbine to demonstrate that such devices could be constructed on that scale. In 1890 Laval developed a nozzle to increase the steam jet to supersonic speed, working off the kinetic energy of the steam, rather than its pressure. The nozzle, now known as a de Laval nozzle, is used in modern rocket engine nozzles. De Laval turbines can run at up to 30,000 rpm. The turbine wheel was mounted on a long flexible shaft, its two bearings spaced far apart on either side. Since the wheel could not be perfectly balanced, this allowed it to spin slightly out of true, without breaking the bearings. The higher speed of the turbine demanded that he also designed new approaches to reduction gearing, which are still in use today. Since the materials available at the time were not strong enough for the immense centrifugal forces, the output from the turbine was limited and large scale electric steam generators were dominated by designs using the alternative compound steam turbine approach of Charles Parsons.[2]

Using high pressure steam in a turbine that had oil-fed bearings meant that some of the steam contaminated the lube-oil, and as a result, perfecting commercial steam-turbines required that he also develop an effective oil/water separator. After trying several methods, he concluded that a centrifugal separator was the most affordable and effective method. He developed several types, and their success established the centrifugal separator as a useful device in a variety of applications.