How it began
Ægidius Elling was born in 1861 in what is now Oslo and graduated from Kristiania Technical College in 1881. He began working on the gas turbine in 1882 and received his first gas turbine patent in 1884. In the summer of 1903 he noted in his diary that he believed he had built and run the first gas turbine that could give a net delivery of power.
How it works
Elling's 1903 machine used a rotary compressor and a turbine, and produced more power than its own compressor consumed. The net output was the equivalent of 11 horsepower, taken off as compressed air, which was in demand for pneumatic tools. He soon added water injection to cool the compressor and recovered heat from the exhaust gas.
Who pushed back
Elling worked without industrial financial backing, and his work stayed largely unknown outside Norway during his lifetime. In 1933 he wrote that he had started on the gas turbine for the sake of aeronautics and believed that aeronautics was still waiting for it. He continued the work until his death in 1949 but took no part in the later development of aircraft turbines.
What changed first
By 1904 the output of Elling's turbine had risen to 44 horsepower, and he turned from producing compressed air to generating electric power. A 1923 patent described a multi-shaft engine with intercooling, reheat and an independent power turbine. He improved this engine until 1932, when it reached about 75 horsepower.
What lasted
A paper presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2004 marked the centenary of his 1903 machine as the first gas turbine in the world to produce net power. His arrangement of compressor and turbine stages in series is a design still in use.
