William FroudeBorn 28 Nov 1810; died 4 May 1879 at age 68.English engineer and naval architect who influenced ship design by developing a method of studying scale models propelled through water and applying the information thus obtained to full-size ships. His first job was as a civil engineer, working for the British railway system. It was not until a few years later that Froude became a naval engineer. He discovered the laws by which the performance of a model in a towing-tank could be extrapolated to the full-size ship when both have the same geometrical shape. This laboratory work was of great concern to the British navy, to maximize the speed and efficiency of their ships. He developed the bilge keel and developed the Froude number as a measure of the effect of gravity on fluid motion. |
