(*november 27th, 1876; + august 23rd, 1934) was an Austrian engineer and the inventor of the Kaplan turbine.

Life

Kaplan was born in Mürzzuschlag, Austria into a railroad worker's family. He graduated from high school in Vienna in 1895, and continued studying civil engineering with a focus on diesel engines at the Technical University of Vienna. From 1900 to 1901 he was drafted into military service in Pula / Croatia.

After working in Vienna with a specialisation in motors, he moved to the German Technical University in Brno to conduct research at the institute of civil engineering. He spent the next three decades in Brno. Almost all his inventions and research projects are connected with his professorship in Brno.

In 1912 he published his most notable work: the Kaplan turbine, a revolutionary water turbine that was especially fitted to produce electricity from large streams with only a moderate incline. He received four patents on these kinds of turbines.

In 1913 Kaplan was appointed head of the institute for water turbines. In 1918 the first Kaplan turbines were built by the Storek construction company for a textile manufacturer in Lower Austria. The first turbines resulted in great success and soon started getting used worldwide. Even today they remain one of the most widely used kinds of water turbines. In 1926 and 1934 Kaplan received honorary doctorates. He died of a stroke in 1934 in Austria.

Kaplan was honored and featured on the 1000 Austrian schilling banknote in 1961.