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OCR for page 311
CLAUDE P. SEIPPEL
1 900-1 986
BY KENNETH A. ROE
CLAUDE P. SEIPPEL was a brilliant scientist, engineer, in-
ventor, educator, and leader. His greatest impact on engi-
neering came from his activities in almost every important
field of turbomachinery. His inventions led to the grant-
ing of thirty-eight major patents, and he wrote some fifty
significant publications. He died in Switzerland on August
I, 1986, at age eighty-six.
Claude was born on June 14, 1900, in Zurich, Switzer-
land. He was graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology in 1922 with an M.S. in electrical engineering.
He started his distinguished career in 1923, joining Brown
Boveri Company (BBC) in Baden, Switzerland. He left the
company to spend several years in the United States, and
rejoined BBC in 1928. His career with BBC can logically
be divided into four periods.
From 1929 to 1940, Claude managed the development,
design, and testing of a multistage axial-flow compressor,
which he patented. This compressor led to the evolution
of the gas turbine and had its first implementation as a
charging set for the Velox boiler. His first commercial gas
turbine unit was a four-megawatt generator for the city of
Neuchate] in Switzerland. In addition to the patent on the
axial-flow compressor, Claude received patents covering
turbocharging, gas turbine governing, and the pressure-
311
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312
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
wave exchanger. His more significant publications during
this period dealt with the Velox steam generator, the axial-
flow compressor, and heat flow in the blade foot of a gas
turbine.
In the second period of CIaude's career, from 1941 to
1954, he continued development work on the gas turbine.
But he also was responsible for significant improvements in
steam-turbine blading design and in combined cycles. He
discovered and announced an important limitation to the
second law of thermodynamics; the importance of his discovery
was not recognized by the experts until years later when
the definition of "exergy" was introduced. His discovery is
even more significant today with the current emphasis on
energy conservation and environmental protection.
It was during this same period that Claude began working
with young students, engineers, and scientists, encouraging
them to devote their careers to research. The Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology elected him to its board of directors,
and Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects the Swiss
equivalent of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers-
elected him to its governing Central Committee.
This period was a particularly productive one for Claude.
His patent for an exhaust turbocharger in 1942 led to a
new market, which became Brown Boveri's most important
business. In following years, he received patents for a gas
turbine for aeronautical use, a device to rotate the wheels
of an airplane before landing, methods for mass production
of centrifugal blowers for supercharging of combustion engines,
a method for regaining mechanical energy, a steam power
plant with a feedwater heating system using extraction steam
and exhaust gases, a steam generator with pressure firing,
and a governing device for turbomachinery.
It was also a highly productive period for CIaude's tech-
nical publications. In 1945 he published a paper on the
use of the gas turbine as a jet engine for airplanes, an early
vision that would later lead to one of aviation's greatest
technological aclvances. But his scientific mind was not so
OCR for page 313
CLAUDE P. SEIPPEL
313
preoccupied that he forgot the young engineers he loved
so much; one of his articles published in 1953 detailed
what industry wanted and expected from its engineers.
From 1955 to 1965, the third period of CIaude's career,
was his last decade as an active senior technical executive
at Brown Boveri. He concentrated on important projects
related primarily to energy, large steam and gas turbines,
and nuclear energy. His patents during this period ranged
from devices to prevent overpressure to methods for calculating
the allowable operating hours of thermal machines, and
from improved blading for axial-flow turbines to a method
of apparatus for the operation of nuclear reactors.
His output of technical papers during this period was
particularly prolific, most of them dealing with gas and
steam turbines, but some particularly important ones concerned
nuclear power. In 1958 he published Geometric Flow Through
Multi-State Turbines, a thorough investigation of the perfor-
mance of turbine blades. His analysis, done in an era when
computers were not used for such complex calculations,
was a major contribution to improved blading for turbines.
Although Claude retired in 1965 as an active senior ex-
ecutive at Brown Boveri, he continued as a consultant to
the company in areas both scientific and managerial. During
this fourth period in his career, he also continued both his
research (which led to five significant patents in his first
eight years of "retirement") and his writing; he wrote on
complex subjects, such as the aerodynamic aspects of blading
research, and on more basic topics, such as how to solve
some of the problems involved in enlarging his beloved
Federal Institute of Technology.
That same Institute, which had elected him to its board
of trustees in 1947 and elected him vice-chairman of the
board in 1957, awarded Claude its honorary "doctor honoris
cause" in 1959 for his contributions in the turbomachinery
field. In 1965 he was named chairman of the Institute's
board, and he served in that capacity for many years.
During his long career, Claude gave unstintingly of his
OCR for page 314
314
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
time to organizations that were grateful for his ideas and
inspiration. He select for eight years on the steering committee
of the Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research, and for fourteen
years he was a member of the Swiss National Foundation as
the representative of the Federal Institute of Technology.
He was active in the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects
and for eight years served on its Central Committee. He
even found time for civic activities, serving as a member of
the Commerce Court of Kanton Argau for sixteen years.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers elected
Claude an honorary member in 1982, and the author was
immensely proud to be the one to nominate him for that
honor. He was elected a foreign associate of the National
Academy of Engineering in 1984. As a memorial to his
achievements, Brown Boveri named its main research center
at Daetwill after him. In the years before his death he was
considered, in the words of a close associate, the "greatest
living technical gray eminence of Switzerland."
The author is proud to have known Claude Seippel for
many years, and feels privileged to have spent hours discussing
with him his thoughts on gas turbines and Velox boilers.
Dr. Seippel's many contributions to the development of
thermal power have earned him a lasting place in the history
of technological development. The world is a better place
because of his brilliance, foresight, perseverance, and
dedication.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
brown boveri
