Dietrich R. Lambrecht

Biography

Dietrich R. Lambrecht was born on April 24, 1925 in Berlin, Germany. He received the Engineering Diploma (Dipl. Ing.) from Beuth Engineering College, Berlin, in 1948. From 1948 to 1958, he was a staff member of the AEG Turbine Generator Design Department in Berlin. In 1958, he became Head of the Turbine Generator Design Department of AEG in Millheim an der Ruhr.

From 1948 to 1957, Mr. Lambrecht was involved in the development of hydrogen cooled generators, and from 1958 to 1965 he was responsible for the development of turbine generators with water cooled armature. This included the introduction of new technologies and advanced design features mainly for the stator endwinding support as the most critical part for generator reliability. Since 1965, he carried out basic research and development on water cooling technology of generator rotors.

When Kraftwerk Union (KWU) in Millheim an der Ruhr was founded in 1969, Mr. Lambrecht was named Manager of the Generator Development Department. This was the period of time whenever larger nuclear power stations were planned and erected. He was responsible for the development of large-rated fully water cooled generators for these power stations of a size up to 1640 MVA.

With the growing size of turbine generators and the increasing short circuit capability of large power systems, the torsional impact of electric transients of turbine and generator shafts became a problem of concern, especially in the case of fault clearing and reclosing. Mr. Lambrecht discovered and investigated this problem and drew attention to this subject with a paper presented at the 1974 IEEE Power Engineering Society Summer Meeting. In the following years, the dynamic performance and torsional stressing of turbine generators was thoroughly analyzed in many of his IEEE and CIGRE publications.

When Siemens KWU commenced with the development of generators with a superconducting field winding, Mr. Lambrecht was named project manager of the program launched in 1978 with the goal to design and manufacture a large superconducting test generator of a frame size of 400 MVA, which is now in the last stage of production. In this position, his efforts concentrated on the application of superconducting technologies and cryogenic requirements to rotors of turbine generators and the investigation of the numerous aspects of superconducting generator design and performance. As convener of the CIGRE Working Group 11-05, he organized and supported international activities and cooperation in the field of superconducting technologies for electric power generation. From 1986 to 1991, he was Executive Director of Engineering of Electrical Machinery of Siemens.

Mr. Lambrecht was a Fellow of the IEEE, and was or was a member of several committees and working groups within IEEE, CIGRE and national organizations. He is a recipient of the 1989 IEEE Nikola Tesla Award, the 1992 IEEE Lamme Medal and author or co-author of over sixty publications. About a hundred patents document his innovative engineering activities.

He was married to Gundula Lambrecht; they had two children, Roland and Astrid. His outside interests included history, classic music, gardening, cross-country skiing and walking in the mountains.