Page 57 - 48Fundamentals of Compressible Fluid Mechanics

1.3. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 19

1.3.5.6 Ludwig Prandtl
Perhaps Prandtl’s greatest achievement was his ability to produce so many great
scientists. It is mind boggling to look at the long list of those who were his students
and colleagues. There is no one who educated as many great scientists as Prandtl.
Prandtl changed the field of fluid mechanics and is called the modern father of
fluid mechanics because of his introduction of boundary layer, turbulence mixing
theories etc.
Ludwig Prandtl was born in Freising, Bavaria, in 1874. His father was a
professor of engineering and his mother suffered from a lengthy illness. As a result,
the young Ludwig spent more time with his father which made him interested in his
father’s physics and machinery books. This upbringing fostered the young Prandtl’s
interest in science and experimentation.
Prandtl started his studies at
the age of 20 in Munich, Germany and
he graduated at the age of 26 with a
Ph.D. Interestingly, his Ph.D. was fo-
cused on solid mechanics. His inter-
est changed when, in his first job, he
was required to design factory equip-
ment that involved problems related to
the field of fluid mechanics (a suction
device). Later he sought and found a
job as a professor of mechanics at a
technical school in Hannover, Germany
(1901). During this time Prandtl de-
veloped his boundary layer theory and
studied supersonic fluid flows through
nozzles. In 1904, he presented the rev-
olutionary paper “Flussigkeitsbewegung
Bei Sehr Kleiner Reibung” (Fluid Flow in
Very Little Friction), the paper which de-
Fig. 1.11: Photo of Prandtl
scribes his boundary layer theory.
His 1904 paper raised Prandtl’s
prestige. He became the director of the Institute for Technical Physics at the Uni-
versity of G¨ ottingen. He developed the Prandtl-Glauert rule for subsonic airflow.
Prandtl, with his student Theodor Meyer, developed the first theory for calculating
the properties of shock and expansion waves in supersonic flow in 1908 (two chap-
ters in this book). As a byproduct they produced the theory for oblique shock. In
1925 Prandtl became the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Flow Investi-
gation at G¨ ottingen. By the 1930s, he was known worldwide as the leader in the
science of fluid dynamics. Prandtl also contributed to research in many areas, such
as meteorology and structural mechanics.
Ludwig Prandtl worked at G¨ ottingen until his death on August 15, 1953.
His work and achievements in fluid dynamics resulted in equations that simplified