¶ Jet Engine
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Index Entry
Jet Engine:
"World War II saw the coming in of chrome-nickel-steel, non-rusting with very high tensile strength-- 350,000 p.s.i.–seven times as strong as the steel of 1851 and seven times high in tensile than in compression strength. With this sudden increase in tensile strength you could have enormous releases of energy with terrific thrusts in all our engines, if needed when they’re on high heat. Nickel steel suddenly made possible great strength at very high heat. And that brought about the jet engine.
“The reciprocating engine is only 15 percent efficient; the turbine gets up to 30 percent… Then we could have fantastic thrust, but the engine would break up. And the principle of the jet had been invented by the squid long ago. Man was not able to use it for his engine, or thrust, until he got chrome-nickel-steel, and it has such high strength and such high heat that made absolutely possible the jet engine. So the jet engine was something made possible by the metallurgical gains in chemistry. The principle of the jet had been invented long ago by the squid.”
¶ Citations
- Univ. of Alaska Address, p.15, 20 Apr '72
