Frank Harris

The ASME History and Heritage Committee Mechanical Engineering History Award for 1991 was awarded to Frank R. Harris, retired chief turbine engineer, at General Electric Company of England (GEC), for his paper "The Parsons Centenary: A Hundred Years of Steam Turbines."

Frank Harris spent his entire career in the engineering design of turbomachinery used throughout the world. Before and after his army service in World War II, he apprenticed with Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company, Manchester, and joined the staff in 1947 as design engineer in the gas turbine engineering department. Metropolitan-Vickers amalgamated in 1958 with British Thomson-Houston to form Associated Electrical Industries, which merged in 1968 with English Electric as part of the General Electric Company of England, GEC.

Though he began working on jet engines in 1947, his work soon focused on gas turbine propulsion of naval ships, an application that became universal for surface warships. Much of his later work dealt with large steam turbines of 120 Mw and up. The largest turbines included 1,200 Mw nuclear units in the United States, including two at San Onofre (Southern California Edison) and one at Enrico Fermi (Detroit Edison). The largest of the high-temperature turbines are at Sundance (390 Mw) and Genessee (410 Mw) in Canada. He retired in 1984 as chief turbine engineer, GEC Turbine Generators, Ltd., and lives in Arbour Close, Rugby, England.

Harris is a Fellow of IMechE, since 1963, and a member of ASME since 1961. He is well-published worldwide, including authorship of the marine gas turbine section (one-third) of Marine Turbines, Pergamon Press, 1961. The paper for which he receives this award was published in 1984 as part of IMechE proceedings Volume 198.