ASHRAE Journal - July 2020 - 51

REFRIGERATION APPLICATIONS
COLUMN

Andy Pearson

Happy Birthday, Mr. Rankine
BY ANDY PEARSON, PH.D., C.ENG., FELLOW ASHRAE

When the Fourth of July celebrations are fading into the morning after the night
before, please take a moment to raise a glass to Professor William Rankine on the
occasion of his 200th birthday. I had hoped to be leading the celebrations with a paper
on Rankine's legacy regarding thermodynamics at the Purdue Conference the week
after his birthday, but sadly that fell victim to the pandemic and has been postponed
until next year.
I gave a short description of Rankine's career and contri- cycle performance but was unable to take his work
bution to refrigeration in a previous column (December
further at that time because empirical data on the prop2016). Since then, in preparing for the Purdue paper and
erties of steam and other gases did not exist. However,
for a conference planned for the end of July in Glasgow,* I
when Victor Regnault of the Collège de France in Paris
have come to an even greater respect and admiration for
published his measurements of steam properties in
the man and his legacy, particularly in engineering edu1848 Rankine was quick to return to the development
cation and thermodynamics.
of his theory, despite the fact that by that time he was a
He was highly regarded as an educator not only for the
practicing Consulting Engineer earning his living in the
clarity of his lecture courses, but also for the ﬁve major
design of infrastructure projects. By this time Thomson
textbooks he produced over a period of about WJM Rankine, born July 5, 1820. in Glasgow, Joule in Manchester, Clausius
10 years. These became popular throughout
in Zurich and many others around Europe
the world and were revised and reissued for
were agreeing that the old theory of heat as
many decades after his death. As a result, he
a weightless ﬂuid (also called "caloric") was
was far better known in the early 20th century
deeply ﬂawed and the science of thermodyin the United States and Japan than he was in
namics was born. Rankine's paper "On the
his home country. His books can be found in
Mechanical Action of Heat" was presented
electronic form on web sites like archive.org
to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in February
and are still models of clarity, brevity and
1850 and runs to 63 pages of densely packed
simplicity that should serve as the blueprint for any
logic and complex calculations. One striking feature of
aspiring author of a scientiﬁc text.
the paper is the extent to which he name-checks and hatIn stark contrast, his work on thermodynamics was
tips all those who came before him; some of them still
highly complex and, as one biographer said, he was
household names and others lost in the mist of time.
"profuse in his use of algebraic symbols and profound in all kinds
His sense of humour shines through his technical writof equations and analysis."† Inspired by the writings of
ing, too. In a paper titled "On the want of popular illustraCarnot and Clapeyron, he started work on the theory
tions of the Second law of Thermodynamics" in 1867 he
of heat and work in 1842 while still a trainee civil engiwrote "The second law....has been much neglected by the authors
neer constructing railroads and waterways in Ireland.
of popular (as distinguished from elementary) works" and added a
Using an entirely innovative thought experiment on the
footnote "The explanation of the second law of
nature of heat, he generated a complete set of maththermodynamics in Dr Balfour Stewart's excellent
ematical models to predict ﬂuid properties and power
treatise on heat is elementary, but it is not, nor does
* The Rankine 2020 Conference will go ahead at the end of
it profess to be, popular."
https://bit.ly/2YUre1l
this month, but as an online event.
Rate this Column
Happy
birthday,
sir!
We
salute
you.
† Hedderwick, J., "Backward Glances" p. 223, published by
Wm Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, 1891.

Andy Pearson, Ph.D., C.Eng., is group managing director at Star Refrigeration in Glasgow, UK.
J U LY 2 0 2 0

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