Birger Ljungstrom
1872 Born in Sweden
1948 Obituary [1]
IT is with regret that we learn of the recent death in Sweden, in his seventy-seventh year, of Dr. Birger Ljungstrom, the co-inventor with his brother Frederik, of the Ljungstrom steam turbine. Mr. Ljungstrom was born at Uddevalla in June, 1872, and after completing his early education he studied at the Stockholm Technical High School from 1889 to 1891. His engineering training was gained in five years with the Separator A.B. Shortly after that time he invented the Svea cycle, and then in conjunction with his brother he turned his attention to the design and construction of a new and ingenious type of radial-flow, double rotation steam turbine. The firm of Aktiebolaget Ljungstrom Angturbin, in a suburb of Stockholm, was founded in 1908, and Birger Lugstrom remained its managing director until about 1923. He was also instrumental in founding in 1913 the Svenska Turbinfabriks A.B. Ljungstrom with works at Finspong, with which he remained until 1923. He worked with the late Alfred Nobel during the last years of Nobel's life. The degree of Dr. Ing. was bestowed on him by the Stockholm Technical High School, and in 1928 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Dresden Technical High School. During the latter part of his life Dr. Ljungstrom did not take a very active part in the Ljungstrom undertakings. He lived, however, to see the Ljungstrom steam turbine developed in Sweden, England and Germany, for power station purposes, and Ljungstrom condensing and non-condensing locomotives tried out in Sweden and England and the Argentine. The Ljungstrom rotary regenerative air heater, too, originally a part of the condensing turbo-locomotive, has been developed for use in power stations and marine plants, while electric propulsion on the Ljungstrom principle was installed in the ships "Mjolner", and "Wulsty Castle."