I was reading the autobiography of Dr. Theodore Von Karman, the great aeronautics expert. He mentioned that he had met with the president of GE, sometime in the late 1930’s-GE wanted to retain Von Karman as a consultant to their turbine design operations. Von Karman never would up working for them, but he added that he thought that turbulent flow at the tips of the turbine blades might be a factor in lowering the efficiency of steam turbines. Has anyone researched this? And why would Von Karman have refused such a prestigious position?
Popular thing in the '30s, gain expertise from a potentially foreign employee, take said expertise, then deport the sad soul.
Very hard to see how this is remotely relevant to von Karman, who came to the US in 1930 (with an already formidable reputation) to be director of Caltech’s Aeronautical Lab, and was granted citizenship not long after that.
Yes, very extensively, including GE. Tip clearance losses are well-known to be critical in steam and gas turbines, and the manufacturers go to extreme lengths to minimize it. The problem isn’t turbulence as such so much as loss of air/steam pressure around the tip of the blade. The problem is related to wingtip vortices on airplanes.
Maybe he didn’t think the problem was as interesting as something else he wanted to work on, or he didn’t want to work for those bastards, or any of a number of reasons.
Retaining as a consultant is not the same as offering someone a job, and thus there was no position to turn down. Karman may have had a host of reasons not to want to bother, including restrictions on his ability to take consulting work in his substantive position.