Walter Thiel

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On November 1, 1932, Dr Walter Thiel (March 2, 1910 - August 17, 1943) was the third civilian hired by Walter Dornberger for German research at Kummersdorf (after Wernher von Braun & Heinrich Grünow) and in 1936, transferred to Dornberger's new rocket section.[1] After transferring from Kummersdorf to the Peenemünde Army Research Center in the summer of 1940, Thiel became deputy director of the Peenemünde HVP Organization under von Braun. Before working at Kummersdorf, Thiel was a chemical engineer at the Heyland Works at Brietz near Berlin.[2] Thiel also designed the motor for the Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile.[citation needed]

Walter Thiel was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1976,[1] and Thiel crater on the moon is named for him.

[edit] Aggregate series Development

Based on the film cooling ('veil cooling') solution identified by colleague Moritz Pöhlmann at Peenemünde, Thiel designed annular rings of tiny perforations to inject unburnt fuel through the chamber walls at the throat for evaporative cooling to prevent V-2 rocket nozzle erosion.[1][3][4]

By September 15, 1941, Thiel officially declared the basic eighteen-pot design of the A-4 motor finished.[1]

Earlier in the Spring of 1941, Thiel began investigating nitric acid and diesel oil to be used as the fuel for the 30-ton-thrust A-8 .[1]

Then on December 18, 1941, Thiel documented the initial A-9/A-10 motor design of six combustion chambers into one common nozzle in Secret Command Document 1496/41.[3]

By the middle of August 1943, Dr Thiel declared that the A-4 developmental problems preclude mass production, recommended the project be abandoned, and resigned with notification he intended to lecture thermodynamics at a technical college. Thiel was killed days later in the Operation Hydra bombing raid -- Martin Schilling replaced Thiel.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Neufeld, Michael J (1995). The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era. New York: The Free Press, p56,80,84,142,157. 
  2. ^ Dornberger, Walter (1952 -- US translation V-2 Viking Press:New York, 1954). V2--Der Schuss ins Weltall (in German). Esslingan: Bechtle Verlag, p27,50,53. 
  3. ^ a b Klee, Ernst; Merk, Otto (1963, English translation 1965). The Birth of the Missile:The Secrets of Peenemünde. Hamburg: Gerhard Stalling Verlag, p117. 
  4. ^ Collier, Basil [1964] (1976). The Battle of the V-Weapons, 1944-1945. Yorkshire: The Emfield Press, p24,91. ISBN 0 7057 0070 4.