COLLMANN, Alfred

C. was a son of a foundry owner. He attended secondary modern school and after that studied at Faculty of Engineering of Vienna Polytechnic Institute between 1867 and 1871. His teachers were Grimus von Grimburg and his adjutant Johann von →Radinger. In 1871 he began working in the machine factory Decker & Co. in Cannstadt, where he spent two years working as a constructor. In 1873 he became a production engineer with Jacob Rieter in Föß in Winterthur, where he until 1877 participated in construction of water turbines. He then worked as a constructor in Baienthaler Maschinenfabrik company in Baienthal in Cologne on the Rhine. As early as 1877 C. developed the idea that steam can enter in and exit the cylinder steam engine through the double valve. During this time the trend moved towards bigger plants and facilities, for which →Radinger gave the initiative. The old 1878 Collmann steering system with roller handle followed these trends and was therefore produced 2000 times in several machine factories during the term of the patent (and for being more reliable than Corlisso and Sulzer's steering systems), despite the relatively large adjustable resistance which could be controlled with high Watts regulators. At the Paris World's Fair he received great admiration from experts and C. was awarded the Legion of Honour ribbon. C. continuously improved his steering systems (patents from 1891, 1892, 1893 and 1895). In 1901, when the 1000th locomotive was made with a new C's system, a "Report on the success of C's steering systems producing factories" was published. Three plants listed in the report each received a Grand Prix at the Paris World's Fair in 1900. A total of more than one million horsepower locomotives were equipped with C's steering system. Between 1880 and 1884 C. lived in England, and then as an engineer settled in his hometown Vienna. C. is important because he greatly improved the operating principle of piston steam engines over the decades, which were then the main propulsion engines in the industry and which were replaced only by the steam turbine. In 1931 Technical University in Vienna granted him the right to use the name of Dr. h. c.