Johannes von Kries and the History of Water Hammer

Water hammer in pipe systems encompasses a range of phenomena familiar to engineers, including 1 the propagation of disturbances created by valve operations, turbomachinery regulation, and accidents, through waves traveling at the speed of sound because of the compressibility of the liquid and the elasticity of the pipe walls; 2 the reflection of these waves off pipe-end boundaries and internal features, such as changes in cross section or branches, leading to characteristic frequencies or periods of oscillation; 3 large pressure changes arising from fluid velocity changes, especially in liquids, because of their high density and low compressibility; and 4 associated unsteady flow phenomena, such as column separation and gas release at low pressures or inertial mass oscillations associated with free surfaces. The propagation and reflection of pressure waves are of interest in many other fields, such as in acoustics, hemodynamics, and solid mechanics, but the need to calculate the high pressure rises and pipe-wall stresses characteristic of relatively rigid pipes carrying liquids is the focus of water hammer in hydraulic engineering. Only in hemodynamics is there a similar interest in pressures and tube wall stresses, even though they tend to be lower in flexible systems. Historically, therefore, the development of what is now widely called the Joukowsky equation defines the origins of a water-hammer theory that is appropriate for engineering practice. This paper reviews the history of the Joukowsky equation and the forgotten contributions by Johannes von Kries. The waterhammer community is ignorant of the work of Kries: for example, the extensive reviews by Wood 1970 , Thorley 1976 , and Ghidaoui et al. 2005 do not mention them; and the reviews by Boulanger 1913 , Lambossy 1950 , and Stecki and Davis 1986 briefly refer to Kries’s 1892 book only. In the hemodynamics community, Kries found some recognition Frank 1927; Evans 1962; Bernstein and Evans 1962; Kenner 1972; Sperling et al. 1975 . Researchers of water hammer highlighted in historical papers include the following: Joukowsky, portrayed by Golubev 1947 , Strizhevsky 1957 , and Stepanov 1997 ; Gariel and waterhammer research before 1914 , reviewed by Remenieras 1961 ; Menabrea, translated by Anderson 1976 ; Michaud, commemorated by Almeida 1979 ; and Allievi, commemorated by Franke 1992 and Ceccarelli 1999 . Skalak 1999 wrote an “in memoriam” on his father, Hager 2001 celebrated Schnyder and Jaeger, and Wiggert and Wylie 2003 paid a tribute to Streeter. This paper on Johannes von Kries is a further contribution to archiving