Franz Reuleaux
Encyclopedia
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
Royal Technical Academy, later appointed as the President of the Academy. He was often called the father of kinematics
Kinematics
Kinematics is the branch of classical mechanics that describes the motion of bodies and systems without consideration of the forces that cause the motion....
. He was a leader in his profession, contributing to many important domains of science and knowledge.
Early life
Franz Reuleaux was born in EschweilerEschweiler
Eschweiler is a municipality in the district of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany on the river Inde, near the German-Belgian-Dutch frontier, and about 15 km east of Aachen and 50 km west of Cologne.- History :...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(at the time part of Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
). His father and grandfather were both machine builders. His technical training was at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic School. He then studied at universities in Berlin and Bonn.
Middle years
After a time spent in the family business he became a professor at the Swiss Federal InstituteETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....
in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
. Eventually, in 1879 he became Rector at the Königs Technischen Hochschule Berlin – Charlottenburg. This was a major technical institute, with about 300 professors. He became widely known as an engineer-scientist — a professor and industrial consultant, education reformer and leader of the technical elite of Germany.
Reuleaux was the appointed chairman of the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
panel of judges for the Sixth World Industrial Fair opened in Philadelphia on May 10, 1876. He admitted that German-made goods were far inferior to those of other countries and that German industry's guiding principle was “billig und schlecht” (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
: cheap and shoddy). This shook business and evoked wide comment in the press.
Reuleaux served on several international juries and commissions and considerably involved in formation of a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
system, as he was active in German politics.
He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
from 1882.
Kinematics
Reuleaux believed that machines could be abstracted into chains of elementary links called kinematic pairKinematic pair
A kinematic pair is a connection between two bodies that imposes constraints on their relative movement. Franz Reuleaux introduced the kinematic pair as a new approach to the study of machines that provided an advance over the notion of elements consisting of simple machines.Hartenberg & Denavit...
s. Contraints on the machine are described by contraints on each kinematic pair, and the sequence of movements of pairs produces a kinematic chain
Kinematic chain
A kinematic chain is the assembly of several kinematic pairs connecting rigid body segments. The complexity of the chain is determined by the following factors:...
.
He developed a compact symbolic notation to describe the topology of a very wide variety of mechanisms, and showed how it could be used to classify them and even lead to the invention of new useful mechanisms. At the expense of the German government, he directed the design and manufacture of over 300 beautiful models of simple mechanisms, such as the four-bar linkage and the crank
Crank (mechanism)
A crank is an arm attached at right angles to a rotating shaft by which reciprocating motion is imparted to or received from the shaft. It is used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion. The arm may be a bent portion of the shaft, or a separate arm...
. These were sold to universities for pedagogical purposes. Today, the most complete set are at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
College of Engineering.
Using his notation and methods for systematically varying the elements (e.g. inversions, changing relative sizes of the links, etc.) he showed how the four-bar linkage could be mutated into 54 mechanisms, which fall within 12 classes.
Today, he may be best remembered for the Reuleaux triangle
Reuleaux triangle
A Reuleaux triangle is, apart from the trivial case of the circle, the simplest and best known Reuleaux polygon, a curve of constant width. The separation of two parallel lines tangent to the curve is independent of their orientation...
, a curve of constant width
Curve of constant width
In geometry, a curve of constant width is a convex planar shape whose width, defined as the perpendicular distance between two distinct parallel lines each intersecting its boundary in a single point, is the same regardless of the direction of those two parallel lines.More generally, any compact...
that he helped develop as a useful mechanical form.
Books by Franz Reuleaux
- Kinematics of Machinery (1875). ebookhttp://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/bib.php?sort=author&type=1
- The Constructor (1861) ebookhttp://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/bib.php?sort=author&type=1
- Kurzgefasste Geschichte der Dampfmaschine (1891)
- Thomassche Rechenmaschine (2d ed. 1892)
External links
- Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (KMODDL)
Movies and photos of hundreds of working mechanical-systems models at Cornell University. Also includes an e-book library of classic texts on mechanical design and engineering.