George "Gogu" Constantinescu (; last name also Constantinesco; 4 October 1881 – 11 December 1965) was a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosoph ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

and inventor. During his career, he registered over 130 inventions. He is the creator of the ''

theory of sonics The theory of sonics is a branch of continuum mechanics which describes the transmission of mechanical energy through vibrations. The birth of the theory of sonics is the publication of the book ''A treatise on transmission of power by vibrations ...

'', a new branch of continuum mechanics, in which he described the transmission of

mechanical energy In physical sciences, mechanical energy is the sum of potential energy and kinetic energy. The principle of conservation of mechanical energy states that if an isolated system is subject only to conservative forces, then the mechanical energy is ...

through

vibration Vibration is a mechanical phenomenon whereby oscillations occur about an equilibrium point. The word comes from Latin ''vibrationem'' ("shaking, brandishing"). The oscillations may be periodic, such as the motion of a pendulum—or random, su ...

Biography

Early years

Born in Craiova in "the Doctor's House" near the Mihai Bravu Gardens, he was influenced by his father George, born in 1844 (a professor of mathematics and engineering science, specialized in mathematics at the Sorbonne University). Gogu Constantinescu settled in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in 1912. He was an honorary member of the Romanian Academy.

Family

He married Alexandra (Sandra) Cocorescu in

Richmond, London Richmond is a town in south-west London,The London Government Act 1963 (c.33) (as amended) categorises the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames as an Outer London borough. Although it is on both sides of the River Thames, the Boundary Commis ...

, in December 1914. The couple moved to

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

and, after their son Ian was born, they moved to

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a crossing point of the ...

. The marriage broke down in the 1920s and ended in divorce. He then married Eva Litton and the couple moved to Oxen House, beside Lake Coniston. Eva had two children, Richard and Michael, by a previous marriage.

Inventions and designs

Synchronization gear

His

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...

machine gun synchronization gear allowed airplane-mounted guns to shoot between the spinning blades of the propeller. The Constantinesco synchronization gear (or ''"CC" gear'') was first used operationally on the D.H.4s of No. 55 squadron R.F.C. from March 1917, during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and rapidly became standard equipment, replacing a variety of mechanical gears. It continued to be used by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

until

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

– the

Gloster Gladiator The Gloster Gladiator is a British biplane fighter. It was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) (as the Sea Gladiator variant) and was exported to a number of other air forces during the late 1930s. Developed private ...

being the last British fighter to be equipped with "CC" gear.

Sonics

In 1918, he published the book ''A treatise on transmission of power by vibrations'' in which he described his

. The theory is applicable to various systems of power transmission but has mostly been applied to hydraulic systems. Sonics differs from

hydrostatics Fluid statics or hydrostatics is the branch of fluid mechanics that studies the condition of the equilibrium of a floating body and submerged body "fluids at hydrostatic equilibrium and the pressure in a fluid, or exerted by a fluid, on an imme ...

, being based on waves, rather than pressure, in the liquid. Constantinescu argued that, contrary to popular belief, liquids are compressible. Transmission of power by

wave In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...

s in a liquid (e.g. water or oil) required a generator to produce the waves and a motor to use the waves to do work, either by percussion (as in rock drills) or by conversion to rotary motion.

Internal combustion engines

He had several patents for improvements to carburetors, for example US1206512. He also devised a hydraulic system (patent GB133719) for operating both the valves and the fuel injectors for

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

Torque converter

He invented a mechanical

torque converter A torque converter is a type of fluid coupling that transfers rotating power from a prime mover, like an internal combustion engine, to a rotating driven load. In a vehicle with an automatic transmission, the torque converter connects the power ...

actuated by a

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward th ...

. This was applied to the '' Constantinesco'', a French-manufactured car. It was also tried on rail vehicles. A 250 hp

petrol engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as ' ...

d locomotive with a Constantinescu torque converter was exhibited at the 1924 Wembley Exhibition. The system was not adopted on British railways but it was applied to some railcars on the Romanian State Railways. Lainici Bridge

Other

Other inventions included a "railway motor wagon". The latter ran on normal flanged steel wheels but the drive used a road vehicle

powertrain A drivetrain (also frequently spelled as drive train or sometimes drive-train) is the group of components that deliver mechanical power from the prime mover to the driven components. In automotive engineering, the drivetrain is the components o ...

with rubber tyres pressed against the rails. This is similar to the system used on many modern road-rail vehicles. He also designed the Grand Mosque of Constanța (a project completed by the architect Victor Ştefănescu, then known as the Carol I Mosque).

Recent developments

Research on a ''sonic asynchronous motor for vehicle applications'' (based on Constantinescu's work) has been done at the

Transilvania University of Brașov Transilvania University of Brașov ( ro, Universitatea Transilvania din Brașov; UNITBV, also stylised UniTBv) is a higher education and research institution in Brașov, Romania, which comprises 18 faculties, with a number of over 19,500 students ...

. The date of the paper is believed to be 5 October 2010.

Death

He died at Oxen House, beside

Coniston Water Coniston Water in the English county of Cumbria is the third-largest lake in the Lake District by volume (after Windermere and Ullswater), and the fifth-largest by area. It is five miles long by half a mile wide (8 km by 800 m), has ...

on 11/12 December 1965, and is buried in the churchyard at

Lowick, Cumbria Lowick is a village and civil parish in the South Lakeland district of the English county of Cumbria. Prior to 1 April 1974 it was part of Lancashire, the change being as a result of the Local Government Act 1972. The village appears in recor ...

Recognition

The

Dimitrie Leonida Technical Museum The Dimitrie Leonida Technical Museum was founded in 1909 by Dimitrie Leonida, inspired by the München Technical Museum, he had visited during his studies in Charlottenburg Polytechnic Institute. In 1908, with the help of the first promotions ...

in Bucharest has exhibits relating to George Constantinescu.

References

External links

Biography

YouTube showing operation of Constantinesco-Colley synchronising gear for WW1 aircraft
{{DEFAULTSORT:Constantinescu, George 1881 births 1965 deaths Aerodynamicists Burials in Cumbria Carol I National College alumni Romanian emigrants to the United Kingdom Fluid mechanics People from Craiova Romanian aerospace engineers 20th-century Romanian engineers Romanian inventors Romanian scientists Titular members of the Romanian Academy