engineering

Georg Knorr

Georg Knorr is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Georg Knorr rather than just read about it. In short: Theodor Georg Knorr (19 October 1859 – 15 April 1911) was a German engineer and entrepreneur on the field of railroad technology and founder of the company Knorr-Bremse. He is particularly remembered for his role in the development of the compressed air brake.

Key takeaways

Georg Knorr belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Georg Knorr to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Georg Knorr from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Theodor Georg Knorr (19 October 1859 – 15 April 1911) was a German engineer and entrepreneur on the field of railroad technology and founder of the company Knorr-Bremse. He is particularly remembered for his role in the development of the compressed air brake.

Life and work After studies in mechanical engineering, Georg Knorr worked at Krefeld's railroad administration. In 1884 he joined the Berlin branch of the American engineer Jesse Fairfield Carpenter's enterprise (at Schöneberger Ufer 17 in Berlin Zoologischer Garten), which promoted the introduction to the German market of the bicameral air brake produced by Carpenter. In 1893 Knorr took over the company "Carpenter & Schulze", transferred the production to Berlin-Britz and in 1900 he even developed a new brake, "Knorr's single chamber express brake". Now he concentrated on the production of his brake, the company's name however remained unchanged. From 1905 on, the "Knorr brake" entered the German railroad services for use at goods trains and soon became the standard brake for all European railroads; the "Carpenter brake" remained insignificant in Europe. To start the mass production of his brake, Knorr moved the firm to a factory building at Neue Bahnhofsstraße 11/12 (which was later named Alte Fabrik) at Boxhagen-Rummelsburg in autumn 1904. In 1905 he eventually established the enterprise "Knorr-Bremse Gmbh" and also bought the neighbouring plot of land no. 13/14 so he could expand the production. There he built the so-called New Factory (Neue Fabrik). Because this plant as well could soon no longer satisfy the increasing demand, annexes were erected in the Hirschberger Straße beyond the train tracks. Together with engineers Kunze and Hildebrand, Knorr pushed the development of railway air brake systems. They developed the Kunze-Knorr brake (a graduated-release composite brake, which can be tightened and released at will) and later the Hildebrand-Knorr brake (another graduated-release brake that simultaneously affects all cars of a train). The factory's profit was so great that in 1911 the enterprise was transformed into the "Knorr Brake Corporation" (Knorr-Bremse AG). In 1910, Georg Knorr had to lay down the company's management for health reasons and eventually died during a cure in Davos in 1911. Because the family had its residence in Berlin's Lichtenberg district, Knorr was buried at the family's tomb at today's Robert-Siewert-Straße. Only after Knorr's death, from 1913 to 1916, the facades of the factory buildings received their uniform design after plans by Alfred Grenander, by means of altering windows, applying brick dressings and by addition of arcades and sandstone reliefs to the parapets, pillars and dormers. On the yards, annexes (lateral and parallel wings) were added and an own heat plant was erected. To the main plant in the Hirschberger Straße a tunnel-like connection street was built. After the First World War and the Great Depression, the company was again able to operate profitably. In 1928 Knorr's heirs had another representative office building built, with tower-like dormers at three corners (whereby the western tower, directly facing the train line, is somewhat higher and has some quite large windows, while the others were devised without windows). All that was also undertaken after plans by Grenander and followed the previous line of design – the total area covered by buildings of Knorr-Bremse on both sides of the train tracks now measured 24,380 m². Both Berlin locations of the former Knorr-Bremse AG are historically preserved. In one of the buildings, a "Knorr museum" was established.

History of the company "Knorr-Bremse" See Knorr-Bremse.

Tribute to Georg Knorr Numerous institutions and roads were named after Georg Knorr, e.g.:

The sports club Georg Knorr in Berlin and Frankfurt, with judo, jiu jitsu, gymnastics, fitness competitions, etc. that participates in the first national league of Germany A business park in Berlin at the intersection of Landsberger Allee/Märkische Allee The ' 'Knorrpromenade' ' in Berlin-Friedrichshain, which was lined with buildings from 1911 on and received its name after the death of Georg Knorr Georg-Knorr-Straße in Berlin-Marzahn Georg-Knorr-Straße in Hohenbrunn in Munich Georg-Knorr-Straße in Kecskemét

References

External links Meyers Neues Lexikon, VEB Bibliographisches Institute Leipzig, 1962 History of the Knorr-Bremse AG by Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein Notes on the Knorrpromenade by Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein Press conference: celebration of "100 years of Knorr-Bremse" at Berlin and renaming of a tramway stop on June 17, 2005 Homepage of the business park at the real estate management of Knorr-Bremse InnoTrans – magazine for rail traffic technology, no. 1 from May 2005

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Georg Knorr

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Georg Knorr claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Georg Knorr before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Georg Knorr ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Georg Knorr

In research: Georg Knorr appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Georg Knorr in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Georg Knorr is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1859 births, 1911 deaths, 19th-century German inventors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Georg Knorr outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Georg Knorr in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Georg Knorr means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Georg Knorr out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Georg Knorr in simple terms?

Why does Georg Knorr matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Georg Knorr?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Georg Knorr.