engineering

R. Tom Sawyer

R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer rather than just read about it. In short: Robert Thomas Sawyer (June 20, 1901 – January 19, 1986) was the founder of the American Society of Mechanical Engineer's International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI) and among industry professionals was known as "Mr. Gas Turbine".

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Robert Thomas Sawyer (June 20, 1901 – January 19, 1986) was the founder of the American Society of Mechanical Engineer's International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI) and among industry professionals was known as "Mr. Gas Turbine". Sawyer authored books about gas turbines, locomotives, and atomic power, and was awarded three U.S. Patents. The ASME established the R. Tom Sawyer Award to honor him for advancing gas turbine technology in all of its aspects for over 40 years. The award in his name is the highest award given by the IGTI, and is awarded annually at their international Turbo Expo.

Education and early work Sawyer was born on June 20, 1901, in Schenectady, New York, but lived most of his life in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey (Ridgewood, Bergen County). He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University in 1923 followed by a master's degree in mechanical engineering in 1930. His undergraduate thesis was entitled "Preliminary Design of 60,000 kw Steam Power Station". While an undergraduate, he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity and Scabbard and Blade. After receiving his undergraduate degree, Sawyer began working for General Electric, where he designed and developed early diesel locomotives.

In 1928, while working on his master's degree, Sawyer rebuilt a 1920s Jordan automobile and replaced the gear box with a generator and motor. He thus created an early hybrid electric vehicle which combined the Jordan automobile's internal combustion engine (ICE) with a DC generator that powered an electric motor to drive the axles. Sawyer drove the car for 60,000 miles in the United States and Australia as a demonstration of its capability. He determined, however, that the electrical parts were too heavy and expensive to be practical, so he discontinued the project and donated the Jordan car to the Mechanical Engineering laboratory at Ohio State University. Sawyer remained in Australia for a year working as an engineer for Australian General Electric, where he worked on gas-electric railroad cars. In 1929, Sawyer visited Dr. Alfred Büchi, the Swiss inventor of supercharging, when Buchi was testing the turbocharger on a large diesel engine in the Sulzer Winterthur plant. It was here that Sawyer first saw a gas turbine without a combustor in the form of the Buchi diesel supercharger.

Career Sawyer then joined the American Locomotive Company, where he served as head of research working on both diesel and gas turbine projects from 1930 to 1956. While working for General Electric in 1925, Sawyer helped assemble and delivered the very first diesel locomotive sold in the United States. In 1944 Sawyer applied for one of the first gas turbine powered locomotive patents. The patent was granted in 1948. In 1945, Sawyer published The Modern Gas Turbine which delineated the history and application of gas turbines including a description of initial testing of the Neuchâtel 4 MW gas turbine by Brown Boveri which was the first electric power industrial gas turbine.

Sawyer worked as a technical advisor to the U.S. Army during the 1950s, where he helped develop the application of gas turbines, through mechanical drive, to a locomotive which was the first step in applying nuclear power to military transportation. During this period, he designed the first gas turbine locomotive to use a Brayton cycle gas turbine with a direct mechanical drive. The resulting locomotive was a small switcher built by the Davenport Locomotive Works and delivered to the army in 1954. This was also the first railway locomotive to use aeroderivative gas turbines being powered by two Boeing 502-2E engines. Sawyer was instrumental in organizing and presenting the first ASME gas turbine technical papers. During May 8–10, 1944, ASME's 17th National Oil and Gas Power Conference was held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where there was intense interest in emerging gas turbine technology. On May 7, 1944, the day before the conference, the executive committee of the Oil and Gas Power Division voted to form a Gas Turbine Coordinating Committee (GTCC) to facilitate dissemination of information related to the gas turbine through meetings and the presentation of technical papers. GTCC with Sawyer of the American Locomotive Company as its chairman was the beginning of the IGTI. Sawyer lived in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, which was close to New York City. Sawyer commissioned a jeweler in New York City to make a die to cast a miniature multi-bladed axial-flow turbine "wheel" lapel pin. Gold turbine wheels from this design have been awarded by IGTI to many volunteers over the years. In 1964, Sawyer contacted the Broadway ASCAP songwriter Arthur Kent, most famous for The End of the World, to compose IGTI's song Onward and Upward with Gas Turbines which was later modernized by a Nashville lyricist. Sawyer remained involved with IGTI until his death in 1986.

Publications, patents, and other activities Sawyer edited the Gas Turbine International Magazine for many years and served as the editorial chairman. He also served on the board of the American Rocket Society. Sawyer worked as a consultant and independent developer of gas turbines until his retirement in 1972. He authored various books including Introduction to the Gas Turbine Locomotive, Gas Turbine Construction, The Modern Gas Turbine, and co-authored Applied Atomic Power. He also wrote The Diesel and the Gas Turbine which was re-printed from the October 1945 issue of Atomic and Gas Turbine Progress as a booklet for the Engineering Department of the American Locomotive Company. In 1968, The American Gas Turbine Catalog was renamed Sawyer's Gas Turbine Catalog. Sawyer was awarded patents for a Power System (US1871472), Power Plant (US2526424), and a Rotary Engine Power Plant (US2445973).

Personal life Sawyer was married to Ruth Ennis Sawyer, daughter of Joseph B. Ennis, who was the vice president and director of engineering for the American Locomotive Company. They had two children and five grandchildren.

The R. Tom Sawyer Award In 1972, ASME established the R. Tom Sawyer Award to honor him for advancing gas turbine technology over 40 years. The award is given annually at IGTI's international Turbo Expo to "an individual who has made important contributions to advance the purpose of the Gas Turbine Institute over a substantial period of time". It is the highest award given by the IGTI.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with R. Tom Sawyer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer

In research: R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer 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: R. Tom Sawyer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1901 births, 1986 deaths, 20th-century American businesspeople, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is R. Tom Sawyer in simple terms?

Why does R. Tom Sawyer 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 R. Tom Sawyer?

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 R. Tom Sawyer.