René Andre Baudry

Biography

René Andre Baudry was born on May 23, 1899 at Ormdy-sur-Aube, France. His schooling was obtained at the Ecole Nationale D’Artes et Metiels-Aix-En-Provence, where he was trained in mechanical engineering.

During and after WWI Mr. Baudry was part of the French Balloon Corps, where he improved French balloon designs by studying German dirigibles. Afterwards, he worked for the Societe Alsacienne de Constructions Mechaniques and then the Comite Desforges Essen-Ruhr in Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1923 and got his first job at the Baldwin Locomotive Works near Philadelphia, but he then quickly moved to Detroit, but not before marrying Louise Pauline Bouquet.

He then spent about two years in Chicago as a draftsman for the Western Electric Company. This was followed by work at Sargeant and Lundy in Chicago as a draftsman. Then in October 1925 he joined the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, where he has spent about 40 years. At Westinghouse, Mr. Baudry was successively draftsman, engineer, section manager, engineering department manager and consultant. Mr. Baudry made many important contributions to electrical engineering not only by significant developments in the field of mechanical engineering, but also in magnetics and in the art of cooling electrical windings. These improvements in the design of large rotating machines greatly affected the economics of electric utility power generation. He had 60 patents, one of these received the Westinghouse special award for outstanding patents. Mr. Baudry's theoretical contributions have had great practical and economic impact on the electric utility industry.

Major engineering areas to which he made important contributions are: design of large- waterwheel generators, in particular modem umbrella type generators and thrust bearings; design of large shock testing machine for u.s. Navy; Design of wind tunnel drivers; spring mounting of turbine generator cores to reduce noise; and development of hydrogen cooled machine components, in particular inner-cooled type turbine generators. Mr. Baudry was a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a Member of lngenieurs Civils (France).

Awards for his professional achievements included: the U. S. Navy Bureau of Ship Certificate of Commendation for outstanding service to the U. S. Navy during World War II; special major patent award for invention of vibration free turbine generator; first prize in Power Division of AIEE for the year 1951-52 for presentation of Paper 52-47; the aforementioned special outstanding patent award by Westinghouse; and the the IEEE’s Lamme Medal in 1966 for “his contributions to the design of large electric generators.”