James B. Francis

James Bicheno Francis ( born May 18, 1815 in South Leigh, Oxfordshire, England; † September 18, 1892 in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA ) was a British -American engineer and invented the Francis turbine water turbine. Its basic idea is based on the Fourneyron turbine from 1826, whose impeller is like that of Francis turbine flows in the radial direction, but still did not have adjustable blades to respond to changing amounts of water and prevent turbulence between the guide vanes and rotor blades. James B. Francis designed the so-called guide vanes can be adjusted from a controller of all blades simultaneously with the. A so -equipped turbine was able to maintain a constant speed, despite the changing amount of water to a stream and, thus, serve as a drive for a generator. A further improvement in the turbine Fourneyron was the installation of curved blades in the impeller.

Francis was a founding member of the American Society of Civil Engineers ( ASCE ), a professional association like the Association of German Engineers ( VDI).

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