The New International Encyclopædia/Reuleaux, Franz

REULEAUX, rẽ'lṓ', Franz (1829— ). A German mechanical engineer, born at Eschweiler, near Aix-la-Chapelle, where his father had machine shops. After finishing his apprenticeship in Koblenz, he worked in his father's shops, studied at Karlsruhe, and for a year was head of a factory in Cologne. Then he taught in Zurich (1856-64) and in Berlin (1864-96), where from 1868 until retirement he was director of the Industrial School. Reuleaux was intimately connected with German machinery exhibits at Philadelphia in 1876 and at Sydney and Melbourne (1879-81). His Briefe aus Philadelphia (1877) voice a sharp criticism on German methods of construction and especially on the lack of artistic design. To remedy this fault Reuleaux gathered a great collection of kinematic models in Berlin. His works are: Konstruktionslehre (with Moll, 1854-62); Der Konstrukteur (1860-62, and often); Kurzgefasste Geschichte der Dampfmaschine (1891); and Thomassche Rechenmaschine (2d ed. 1892).