John Barber (engineer)

In 1791 Barber took out a patent (UK patent no. 1833 – Obtaining and Applying Motive Power, & c. A Method of Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of Procuring Motion, and Facilitating Metallurgical Operations) which is recognised as containing the key features of a gas turbine. Barber's design included a chain-driven, reciprocating gas compressor, a combustion chamber, and a turbine. Barber's turbine was designed to burn producer gas obtained from wood, coal, oil, or other substances, heated in a retort or producer, from where the gases were conveyed into a receiver and cooled. Air and gas were then to be compressed in different cylinders and discharged into an exploder (combustion chamber) where they were ignited, the mixture of hot gas then being played against the vanes of a paddle wheel. Water was to be injected into the explosive mixture to cool the mouth of the chamber and, by producing steam, to increase the volume of the charge. The patent proposed various uses for the gas turbine including propulsion of ships, barges and boats by reaction, mechanical operations (grinding, rolling, forging etc.) and injection of the exhaust stream into furnaces for smelting ores. == Legacy ==

Given the technologies available to Barber, it is unlikely that a gas turbine could have been built that would have been able to create sufficient power to both compress the air and the gas and produce useful work. It wasn't until 1939, some 148 years after Barber's initial patent, that the first constant pressure gas turbine entered service in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. In the same year that Brown, Boveri & Cie commissioned the Neuchâtel gas turbine the company published an article on the history of gas turbines which acknowledged John Barber's patent. ==See also==