Robert D. Napier

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For his second cousin, another Scottish engineer, see Robert Napier (engineer).

Robert D. Napier (1821 - May 1885) was a Scottish engineer, and the youngest son of David Napier (marine engineer).

Educated in Liverpool and London, Robert D. Napier worked for his father's shipbuilding firm. At the age of 30, he moved to Australia, where oversaw dredging operations in Sydney Harbor. While there, he invented the "Differential Self-Acting Friction Brake" and the "Napier Windlass". He returned to Scotland about 1865-1866 and established a new business with his brother John.^[1]

Napier also experimented and wrote on a number of important scientific topics. He is best known for his 1866 work "On the Velocity of Steam and other Gases, and the True Principles of the Discharge of Fluids". This work was one of the earliest discussions of the diverging nozzle, later known as the de Laval nozzle. It presented the well-known "Napier formula" for steam loss through an orifice. He also wrote a number of papers on the flow of water through nozzles.^[2]

He never married, and he died in Glasgow on May, 1885.

References

↑ http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Robert_D._Napier
↑ Obituary in Engineering, Vol. 39, May 22, 1885

Persondata
Name	Napier, Robert D.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1821
Place of birth
Date of death	1885
Place of death

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