Propeller (pronounced pruh-pel-er)
(1) A person or thing that propels.
(2) A device with a hub to which are attached evenly
spaced & shaped radiating blades, rotating on a shaft to pitch against air
or water to propel an aircraft, ship etc.
(3) A wind-driven (usually three-bladed) device that
provides mechanical energy, as for driving an electric alternator in wind
plants (not a universal use).
(4) A steamboat thus propelled; a screw steamer (now
rare).
(5) In fishing, a spinnerbait.
1780: The construct was propel + -er and the original
sense was “one who or that which that propels”, an agent noun from the verb propel. The verb propel was a mid-fifteenth century
form from the Middle English propellen
(to drive away, expel), from the Latin propellere
(push forward, drive forward, drive forth; move, impel), the construct being pro- (the prefix here use in the sense
of “forward direction, forward movement”) + pellere
(to push, drive), from the primitive Indo-European root pel- (to thrust, strike, drive). The meaning “to drive onward, cause to move
forward” emerged in the 1650s. The –er
suffix was from the Middle English –er
& -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been
borrowed from the Latin –ārius where,
as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals. In English, the –er suffix, when added to a
verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action
indicated by the root verb. The use in
English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our),
from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.
When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or
describing the person whose occupation is the noun. The alternative spelling propellor dates from the early days of
aviation in the first years of the twentieth century and is now extinct. The standard abbreviation is “prop”, the use noted
from military aviation since 1914. Propeller
is a noun; the noun plural is propellers.
Although the concept was used in antiquity and inventors
and others (most famously Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)) had for centuries experimented, the use of the word in mechanical
engineering dates from 1809 and was from nautical design describing the
application of a “device for moving vessels on or under the water”. In aircraft design the theory of the use of “propeller”
appears in papers and drawings in the 1840s (in what were then described as “flying
machines”) and models were built which demonstrated a “proof of concept”
although it would be decades before lightweight engines of sufficient power existed
to allow experiments in aerodynamics and construction to be powered. The first known rendering of an aircraft
propeller in a recognizably modern form dates from 1853. The modern propeller uses two or (usually) more
twisted, airfoil-shaped blades mounted around a shaft which are spun to provide
propulsion of a vehicle through water or air, or to cause fluid flow, as in a
pump. The lift generated by the spinning
blades provides the force that propels the vehicle or the fluid although this
lift does not of necessity have to induce an actual upward force; its direction
is simply parallel to the rotating shaft.
Lindsay Lohan getting off the propeller driven (technically a turbo-prop) NAPA Shuttle, The Parent Trap (1998).
The term “to disembark” was borrowed from nautical use and of late "to deplane" has entered English which seems unnecessary but the companion “to disemplane” seems more absurd still; real people continue to “get on” and “get off” aircraft.
The terms “impeller” & “propeller” both
describe devices which use various implantations of the “rotating blade(s)
design and are used in mechanical systems to take advantage of the properties
of fluid dynamics to harness specific energy for some purpose. A propeller is a type of rotating device with
blades designed to propel or move a fluid (typically a gas or a liquid) by
generating thrust; they are most associated with marine vessels, aircraft and
some industrial applications. In aircraft,
propellers can be attached to wing-mounted engines or mounted just about
anywhere on a fuselage although historically a location at the front has been
most common. In marine applications,
propellers have on specialized vessels been located to the sides of the hull
but they almost always emerge at or close to the stern. An impeller is a rotating component with
blades or vanes (almost always enclosed in a housing), typically used for fluid
or air distribution, such as a pump or a compressor, the primary purpose being
to increase flow or pressure. The
classic impellers those in centrifugal pumps where they spin, creating a flow
of fluid (liquid or air) by imparting centrifugal force to the substance; in
practice, impellers such accelerate liquids are more common.
So an impeller & propeller do much the same thing,
using blades to propel some form of fluid.
The use of different terms is helpful because in practice they are very different
devices and the distinction that one is external and the other located within a
housing is handy and the origin of that seems to lie in the construct of
impeller which came first, dating from circa 1680 (as an agent noun from the
verb impel) in the sense of “someone or something which impels”. What the design of an impeller does is use
the energy from the rotation to increase the flow or pressure of the fluid and
it that it’s the reverse of a turbine, the rotation of which extracts energy
from, and reduces the pressure of the flow.
Engineers also have a number of highly technical rules about what is and
is not defined as an impeller base on the whether the entry and exit of the
fluids occur axially or radially but it seemed impossible to construct such
definitions as absolutes so for most the simpler distinctions are more helpful. In engineering, impellers have been recorded
as a machine or component name since 1836.
News Corp website 22 January 2024. To refer to a jet engine’s nacelle as a propeller could (almost) be defended on the basis it’s the jet engine which “propels” the aircraft but this is more likely an example of (1) the decline in the quality of journalists and (2) what happens when there are no sub-editors to correct the mistakes. In time, artificial intelligence (AI) should improve things.
The verb impel dates from the early fifteenth century and
was from the Middle English impellen,
from the Latin impellere (to push,
strike against; set in motion, drive forward, urge on), the construct an assimilated
form of in- (into, in, on, upon),
from the primitive Indo-European root en-
(in) + pellere (to push, drive), from
the primitive Indo-European root pel-
(to thrust, strike, drive). The construct
of the Latin impellō was in- + pellō (push,
drive), from the Proto-Italic pelnō
or pelnaō, a nasal-infix present derived from the primitive Indo-European pelh- (to drive, strike, thrust).
The Latin prefix –in could be appended to create a negative (un-, non-, not
etc) but here was used as an intensifier, another possible meaning (in, within,
inside) coincidental to the mechanical devices being usually mounted within
housings.
Propellers and impellers both use blades (although those
of the latter are often in the form of a single piece wither cast, molded, or (occasionally)
forged. Turbines also use blade-like
parts but these are called vanes and an industry which seems unable to decide
on terminology is the burgeoning business of wind-power; the huge rotating
assemblies on wind turbines are referred to variously as vanes, blades or
rotors. Rotor blades are familiar for
the use in helicopters which is essentially an airframe where a large-scale
propeller sits atop the structure, pointing upwards and rather than “propeller
blades”, the accepted term is “rotor blades”, the design of which permits both
lift and directional thrust although some exotic multi-engined machines have
rotors in housings which, to maximize performance, can themselves be rotated to
operate as conventional propellers.
Supermarine Seafang (1946) with contra-rotating propellers. The Seafang was powered by the Rolls-Royce Griffon and was the final evolution of the Spitfire-derived Seafire and Spiteful, the trio all designed for use on Royal Navy aircraft carriers, the series enjoying success despite the basic design being hampered by the narrow undercarriage which made landings a challenge (something corrected on the Spiteful & Seafang). Series production of the Seafang was contemplated but eventually only 18 were built because the jet-powered de Havilland Sea Vampire proved capable of carrier operations, surprising some at the Admiralty who doubted the jets could operate from anywhere but land.
The evolution of aircraft influenced propellers. Once they had been fashioned from wood before
the need for faster, more efficient shapes dictated the use of aluminium or other
light metals. By the time the first
modern monoplane fighters appeared in the mid 1930s propellers were still
two-bladed but as power increased over the years (something which accelerated
during World War II (1939-1945)), three, four and five-bladed solutions were
engineered. The rising output however,
although it permitted higher performance, created challenges for engineers,
notably the “torque effect” which meant a tendency to cause the aircraft to roll
in the direction of the propeller’s spin, a problem especially serious during
take-offs. In twin-engined aircraft the
solution was to have the propellers rotate in opposite directions but in
airframes with a single power-plant, sometimes used were contra-rotating
propellers which, although introducing additional complexity and demanding
additional maintenance, did offer advantages including: (1) harnessing more of
an engine’s power, (2) increased thrust efficiency by a reduction in energy
losses, (3) counteracting the torque effect, (4) improved low-speed manoeuvrability
and ground-handling and (5) improved acceleration and climbing performance.
A flight of Republic P-47D Thunderbolts with under-wing drop-tanks.
The propeller also influenced other aspects of the
aircraft. When the prototype Republic
P-47 Thunderbolt (1941-1945) first took to the air, it was the largest,
heaviest single-seat piston-engined fighter ever produced (a distinction it still
enjoys today). Even the early versions
used an engine rated at 2000 horsepower (later this would rise to 2800) and to harness this output demanded a large
propeller. The 12 foot (3.7 m) diameter of this four-bladed monster meant the landing-gear had to be extraordinarily long
and the only way it could be accommodated was to have them retract inward,
otherwise the heavy wing armament (8 x .50 inch (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns (425 rounds per gun)) wouldn’t have fitted.
Chrysler XI-2220 V16. The splined shaft is where the propeller attaches.
With things like the Thunderbolt, the Hawker Tempest and
the later Supermarine Spitfires (and its derivatives), the piston-engined fighter achieved its final
evolutionary form, the jet engine offering a path to performance
unattainable while the physics of propellers imposed limits. However, had the use of the
A-Bombs not ended the war in 1945, development of the propeller aircraft would
have continued because the early jets lacked thrust and reliability as well as
suffering a rate of fuel consumption which rendered them unsuitable for
long-distance operations. With the war
against Japan envisaged as lasting well into 1946, development of faster, more
powerful piston engines continued although, given the parlous state of the
Japanese military, it’s dubious at least there was much of a rationale for this
but the military industrial complex is a creature of inertia and Chrysler’s
research had perfected a new aero-engine for the Thunderbolt. The XI-2220 was a 2,220 cubic inch (36.4
litre) V16 which was rated at a basic 2450 horsepower with some 4000 hp available when tuned for wartime use but with the end of the conflict, all such
developments were cancelled and attention switched to the brave new world of
jets and swept wings. Thus ended the era
of the big propeller-driven fighters, the V16 stillborn, as was the other
extraordinary aero-engine on the drawing board: Britain's 32-cylinder Napier-Sabre H-32
which was a scaled-up version of their H24.
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