Turbine waterwheels. Gas, steam, and water turbines have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Credit for invention of the steam turbine is given both to Anglo-Irish engineer Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) for invention of the reaction turbine, and to Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) for invention of the impulse turbine. Modern steam turbines frequently employ both reaction and impulse in the same unit, typically varying the degree of reaction and impulse from the blade root to its periphery. The word "turbine" was coined in 1822 by the French mining engineer Claude Burdin from the
Robert Huber (engineer) first was the AC-2, running on petrol (gasoline). The second was the AC-3, which was similar but ran on diesel fuel. Eighteen types of free-piston engine were built and tested. In 1932, Huber read a book by Professor Lomonosov about diesel locomotives. He also heard of a proposal by Petro Shelest for turbines driven by compressed air. This information gave him the idea of developing the free-piston gas turbine. Several of these were designed but not built. Finally, in 1938-39, the world's first free-piston generator was built. It used two G-30 machines and drove an 800 kW alternator. Huber stayed