The Development of Turbine Engines in France: An Account of Some of the Experimental Work Carried Out by the Research Departments of the Société Rateau at La Courneuve

IN the years preceding the last World War, before it was concerned with the problem of the gas turbine, the Société Rateau dealt, with some success, with the very important problem of blower equipment for marine boilers. This is a problem having marked analogies with that of the supercharging of aero‐engines. It is, however, more spectacular owing to the incomparably greater power involved and more particularly because the size of the engines is of the same order as, or greater than, that of the gas turbine. This made possible a close study of all the problems presented by the latter type of power unit.