DOUMA

DOUMA 30.05. 1912 Hanford CA/USA 04.10. 2004 Great Falls VA/USA Jacob Hendrick Douma obtained the BS degree from University of California, Berkeley CA in 1935, and then joined the US Army Corps of Engineer for two years as hydraulic engineer at Vicksburg MS. From 1936 to 1939 he was a staff member of the US Bureau of Reclamation, and then returned to his former position until 1955, finally as chief hydraulic engineer until 1979. Douma then was a consulting hydraulic engineer until 1990 at Washington DC. He was a member of the US Commission of Large Dams, and the Permanent International Association of Navigation Congress PIANC. He was appointed to the National Academy of Engineers, and was a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE, serving as member in its Executive Committee of the Hydraulics Division ASCE from 1968 to 1974. Douma was all through his career a hydraulic engineer dealing with water power and the related hydraulic problems. His first works relate to high-speed air-water flows on chutes, the so-called white water flow. After this topic was originally investigated in the 1920s in Austria, the first thorough input was made in the ASCE Symposium on entrainment of air in flowing water, with two main contributions to free surface and pipe flows. Douma participated as a discusser by presenting results relative to the airwater volumetric ratio in terms of a modified Froude number. The larger the latter, the higher the ratio was found. Douma also proposed a limit Froude number for incipient air entrainment of the order of 5. He further analyzed the chute flow features with an adapted backwater relation, and the effects of aerated flow on the energy dissipator. Anonymous (1973). J.H. Douma. 11th ICOLD Congress Madrid 5: 35. P Anonymous (1974). Jacob Douma. New Civil Engineer 3(10): 6. P Anonymous (1994). Douma, Jacob H. American men and women of science 2: 896. Douma, J.H. (1943). Discussion of Open channel flow at high velocities, by L. Standish Hall. Trans. ASCE 108: 1462-1473. Douma, J.H. (1955). Engineering problems in US tidal waterways. Proc. ASCE 81(789): 1-22. Douma, J.H. (1983). Hydraulic and hydrologic considerations. Safety of existing dams: 71-131, R.B. Jansen, ed. National Academy Press: Washington DC. Jobes, J.G., Douma, J.H. (1942). Testing theoretical losses in open channel flow. Civil Engineering 12(11): 613-615; 12(12): 667-669; https://140.194.76.129/publications/eng-pamphlets/ep870-1-56/bio.pdf P

DRAKE 29.03. 1819 Greenville NY/USA 08.11. 1880 Bethlehem PA/USA Edwin Laurentine Drake was the driller of the first productive oil well in the USA. Raised on farms in New York and Vermont, he worked as a hotel clerk before becoming agent for the Boston and Albany Railroad. In 1850, he became a conductor on the New York and New Haven Railroad, but few years later had to retire for health reasons. In 1857, while living at New Haven CT, Drake met stockholders of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, claiming a lease on land near Titusville PA, where oil had been gathered from ground-level seepages for medicinal uses. The company hoped to make money selling the oil for lighting, so that the stockholders sent Drake to Titusville to assess the viability of the enterprise. Letters of introduction to businessmen in the area referred to Drake as ‘Colonel’, so that he was known as Colonel Drake for the rest of his life. After Drake returned to New Haven with a favorable report, the New Haven stockholders formed the Seneca Oil Company, sold some stock to Drake, and sent him back to develop the site. Drake studied the techniques of drilling salt wells and decided to bore for the oil. He began drilling in 1858 and immediately found it impossible to maintain a borehole in the loose rock and soil just below the surface. He solved the problem by driving pipe sections into the ground until bedrock was struck, and from there the drilling continued until the top of an oil deposit was reached at a depth of 21 m on August 27, 1859. With the spread of this drilling techniques, Titusville and other northwestern Pennsylvania communities became boomtowns. Drake drilled two more wells for the Seneca Co., but failed to patent his drill-pipe methods and never became a success in oil speculation. He worked at various jobs in Titusville, then moved to New York City, Vermont, and New Jersey. In 1870, after years of poverty, he returned to Pennsylvania, where he eventually was awarded a pension by the state legislature. In 1901 an executive of the Standard Oil Company paid to erect a monumental tomb in Drake’s honor at Titusville cemetery, to where Drake’s body had been moved. In 1946, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania built a replica of Drake’s original oil derrick and engine house at the well site, which subsequently became part of the Drake Well Museum. Anonymous (1880). Edwin L. Drake. Scientific American 43: 344. https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/170909/Edwin-Laurentine-Drake https://cdm16038.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15017coll24/id/472 P https://www.oil150.com/essays/2008/04/_edwin-laurentine-drake-1819-1880_-by-dr-william-r-brice