Collaborating with
Charles Renard, Krebs piloted
the first fully controlled free-flight made in the French Army
airship La France, which was designed in 1884. The flight covered in 23 minutes. The flight landed back at its starting point. On its seven flights the
La France dirigible returned five times to its starting point. Krebs and Renard shared the 1886 Ponti prize of the French
Académie des sciences for their contribution to
aerostation. Krebs inspired
Jules Verne. In Verne's 1886 novel
Robur The Conqueror, he writes of "the striking experiments of Captain Krebs and Captain Renard". In 1888 Krebs and
Gustave Zédé designed the first modern French submarine, the
Gymnote. The submarine was fitted with the first naval
periscope and the first naval electric
gyrocompass. The latter allowed the
Gymnote to force a naval block in 1890. From 1884 to 1897 Arthur Krebs modernized the
Ville de Paris fire department; not only its equipment but its organisation as well. His work left a lasting impression in this elite corps. In May 1896 Arthur Krebs patented a new automobile, fitted with an electromagnetic
gearbox and a layout of the front wheels which re-centred them when the steering wheel was left alone. Today this is known as the
Castor angle. The
Panhard et Levassor company acquired a license to build 500 cars under the name of
Clement-Panhard between 1898 and 1902 featuring this innovation. Krebs succeeded Levassor as Panhard et Levassor's general manager from 1897 to 1916. He transformed the Panhard et Levassor Company into one of the largest and most profitable automobile manufacturers before World War I. In 1898 Krebs replaced the tiller with an inclined
steering wheel for the Panhard et Levassor car he designed for the Paris-Amsterdam race which ran from 7 to 13 July 1898. Fernand Charron won that race on a four-cylinder Panhard et Levassor. At the end of 1898, C S Rolls introduced the first car in Britain fitted with wheel steering when he imported a 6 hp Panhard et Levassor from France. In 1902 Krebs invented the automatic diaphragm carburettor which gave cars continuous power during acceleration by providing a constant air-fuel ratio at all times; this also led to dramatic improvement in fuel economy. In 1906 Krebs traveled to the United States to plead in the
Selden Case, associated with
Henry Ford. military truck during the World War I. Krebs introduced many improvements in car design: the steering wheel (1898), non-reversible steering (1898), engine balance (1898), nickel steel alloys and other special steel alloys (1901), the shock absorber (1906), multi-disc clutch (1907), the electric brake dynamometer for testing high performance engines (1905), the enveloping (globoid)
worm gear differential (1915). Also, Krebs contributed significantly to improve the
Systeme Panhard (engine in front, rear wheel drive) which became universally adopted before World War II. In 1909 Krebs became interested in the Knight patent (
sleeve valve engine). He was also the first person in France to build that type of engine which Panhard et Levassor would produce during the thirty years leading up to World War II. He made contributions to automotive racing with his powerful cars and motorboats. In 1911 Krebs invented the first elastomeric
flexible coupling (cf. John Piotrowski). It is known in French as the
Flector joint. This device is still widely used today in industry for power transmission as a
tyre coupling. The truck was meant for military and civil purposes. In 1911, jointly with the Chatillon Co, Krebs designed the
Tracteur Chatillon-Panhard all-terrain truck. The truck had four wheel drive and four wheel steering and many were used during World War I as artillery tractors. Krebs also utilized his former military membership to supply the French Army with engines and vehicles including the 1904 Genty
Armored car, the
1916 St Chamond tank, the Chatillon-Panhard 4x4 truck, and others. In 1960, the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) named
Krebs Glacier, a glacier flowing west into the head of Charlotte Bay on the west coast of Graham Land in the Antarctic continent, after Krebs. ==Papers presented to the French
Académie des sciences==