Cavitation had been discussed much earlier, but practical naval investigation began in the late nineteenth century. Work associated with Thornycroft and Barnaby in 1895 helped turn blade damage and lost efficiency into a tractable ship-design problem. Charles Parsons enters the story because turbines confronted closely related cavitation effects. These developments connect propeller research, shipbuilding practice, and the turbine revolution as engineering fields.
Chapter · 36:38-37:26
Shipbuilders and turbine pioneers turn cavitation into a design problem
Late-nineteenth-century work by Thornycroft, Barnaby, and Parsons links propeller cavitation to the wider evolution of naval construction and turbines.