Steam turbine steam jacks. In 1672 an impulse steam turbine driven car was designed by Ferdinand Verbiest. A more modern version of this car was produced some time in the late 18th century by an unknown German mechanic. In 1775 at Soho James Watt designed a reaction turbine that was put to work there. In 1827 the Frenchmen Real and Pichon patented and constructed a compound impulse turbine. The modern steam turbine was invented in 1884 by Sir Charles Parsons, whose first model was connected to a dynamo that generated 7.5 kW (10 hp) of electricity. The invention of Parsons' steam turbine
Westinghouse Combustion Turbine Systems Division the development of a 2000 hp (~1500 kW) gas turbine generator set, the W21. It had a thermal efficiency of 18% (LHV). The first application of the W21 in an industrial setting was in 1948 as a gas-compressor drive installed at the Mississippi River Fuel Corp. facility located at Wilmar, Arkansas. Reports have it that this was the first industrial gas turbine in the world to accumulate 100,000 hours of operation before it was retired. By 1948, Westinghouse also built an experimental 4000 hp gas turbine-driven locomotive with the Baldwin Company (Chester, PA) that used two of these units. Initial