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Henri Coanda
Romanian Scientist (1886-1972)
One of the pioneers of the Romanian aviation, parent of the modern jet
aircraft
Born in Bucharest on June 7, 1886, being the second son of
Constantin M. Coanda.
Education
- Attended the high-school in Bucharest and Iasi
- Joined the Bucharest Military School, where graduated as an
artillery officer
- Attended the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Germany
- Followed studies at the Science University in Liege, part of
the Electrical Institute in Montefiore
- Registered at the Superior
Aeronautical School in Paris, where he graduated in 1909
Career
- Interested by technical problems, especially by flight, in
1905 built a "missile-airplane" in Bucharest for the Army
- Began his
engineering practice in aerodynamics, where he became world-wide renowned
- He was
awarded distinctions around the world for many inventions
Major Discoveries and Achievements
- The most known, studied,
and applied discovery is the "Coanda Effect". Made this
discovery while
he was testing his jet airplane, Coanda-1910. After studies which lasted more
than 20 years, carried out by Coanda and other scientists, it was recognized as
a new aerodynamic effect
- a mobile platform for
aerodynamic experiments; he mounted this device on a train and carried out
the experiments while the experimental train was running at about 90 km/hr.
on the Paris-Saint Quentin route. In this manner he could determine
quantitatively aerodynamic phenomena; using an wind tunnel with smoke and an
aerodynamic balance of his conception he quantified aerodynamic principles
using a special photo camera (designed by himself). Due to these experiments
he could establish the appropriate profile of wings which were later used
for airplanes design.
- Coanda-1910 the world's
very first jet aircraft
- in 1911 at Reims, H.
Coanda presented a two-engine airplane with only one propeller.
- between 1911-1914 while
being technical director at Bristol Airplanes in Great Britain, he designed
several airplanes known as Bristol-Coanda airplanes. In 1912 one of these
planes won the first prize at the International Military Aviation Contest in
England.
- Between 1914-1916 H.
Coanda worked at Dalauney-Belleville Airplanes in Saint Denis. Here he
designed three types of airplanes, among them Coanda-1916, with two
propellers mounted close to the tail (similar to the well known DC-9
transport jet).
- October 8, 1934 - Coanda
received the patent "Procedure and device for the deviation of a fluid
inside another fluid". This procedure has many applications: thrust vectoring for modern aircraft
and missiles, including thrust reversal, the reduction of the noise level for
jet engines and the increasing of the lift through the blowing of the
aerodynamic surfaces
- 1935 - based on
"Coanda Effect", designed a flying machine which resembles what
is known today as "flying saucer" (he called his machine Aerodina
Lenticulara). Coanda considered that this could be the most important
application of his effect for the aviation of the future. In 1967, at a
symposium organized by the Romanian Academy he said:
-
"These airplanes
we have today are no more than a perfection of a toy made of paper children use
to play with. My opinion is we should search for a completely different flying
machine, based on other flying principles. I consider the aircraft of the
future, that which will take off vertically, fly as usual and land vertically.
This flying machine should have no parts in movement. The idea came from the
huge power of the cyclones."
- Coanda-1910 - a revolutionary aircraft in many ways. First and
foremost, it is now being recognized as the first jet engine aircraft, making
its first and only flight on 16 December, 1910. Coanda's aircraft was the first
to have no propeller. This was 30 years prior to Heinkel, Campini, and Whittle
who have been considered the "fathers" of jet flight. Missing
financial support, Coanda did not pursue further development of his
"reactive" aircraft. Other innovations of this aircraft included these
many firsts:
- wings made with steel leading edges instead of wood
- movable slats on the forward wing edge to increase lift
- the wing profile had a strong chamber
- the two wings were of different lengths and the upper wing was set ahead
of the lower wing which was shorter. This reduced the aerodynamic
interference between the two surfaces. This was later termed Sesquiplan and
reinvented 10 years later where it was applied in Fokker, Breguet, and Potez
aircraft
- gasoline and oil were stored in the upper wing thus reducing the fuselage
size and thus drag
-
The engine was the real innovation, though, and it is lost to the aircraft
industry that development was not further pursued in 1910. Coanda's
"air-reactive engine" was housed under a cowl and was comprised of
a 50 hp Clerget four-cylinder in-line, water-cooled, gasoline-powered engine
rotating at 1000 rpm. Through a gearbox, the engine turned a compressor at
4000 rpm. An obturator (a device that opens and closes similar to an iris in
a camera) remotely-operated by the pilot was found in front of the
compressor to regulate the flow of air into the compressor. The compressor
exhaust entered two ring-shaped burning chambers located on each side of the
fuselage. The gasoline engine's exhaust and additional fuel was also ported
into the chambers. The combustion of this mixture exhausted from the
chambers down the steel-sheeted plywood sides of the Coanda-1910 producing a
thrust of 220 kgf, much greater than would be available from the gasoline
engine and a propeller alone
He performed the first reactive flight on 16 December 1910, but the flight
ended in an accident because the aircraft side slipped, fell, and burned. During
this flight Coanda discovered the Coanda effect which is
considered now the basis for the short take off aircraft. After the plane
took off, Coanda observed that the flames and burned gases exhausted from
the engine tended to remain very close to the fuselage. For a long time this
phenomenon of the burned gases and flames hugging the fuselage remained a
great mystery which he explored by exchanging opinions with specialists in
aerodynamics around the world.
1970 - Coanda returned
to Romania and settled for the last years of his life in Bucharest
1971 - together with Prof. Elie Carafoli reorganized the Aeronautical Engineering discipline at
Bucharest Polytechnic Institute, splitting the Mechanical and Aeronautical
Engineering Department into two departments of study - Mechanical Engineering
and Aircraft Engineering
Henri Coanda died on November 25, 1972
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