In the 1970s Carl Wilcox gave me a box of archive materials on the Smith-Putnam wind turbine project. I had just interviewed him on his role. (Whatever I wrote then has long been lost.) I recently turned over this box of materials to the York County History Center for their archive on the project.
To illustrate the role that Carl Wilcox played in the Smith-Putnam project, I’ve pulled together several citations in Palmer Putnam’s Power from the Wind, one of the seminal books on wind energy in English [1].
The 20 citations are from the 45 listed in Putnam’s bibliography. From this it’s clear that Carl Wilcox was an important figure on Putnam’s team developing the 1.25 MW wind turbine.
Wilcox “was a civil engineer on loan to the S. Morgan Smith Company from the Budd Company” according to Kristian Nielsen [2]. He played a prominent, though historically unsung, role in the project. He worked under the direction of John Wilbur, the project’s chief engineer, and the head of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Wilcox recalculated the loads on the blades late in the project based on strain gauge measurements and found they were higher than first thought. Wilbur then advised that the turbine should be removed “as soon as it served its purpose” [Putnam, 1948, p. 131].
4. Wilcox, Carl J. Memorandum on the Computation of Mean Annual Weighted Density. April 1941.
5. Wilcox, Carl J. Computation of Mean Annual Weighted Density at Sea Level, Blue Hill, Mt. Abraham, Lincoln Mt., Mt. Washington and 10,000 ft. September 1941.
9. Wilcox, Carl J. Anomaly Study. April 1941.
13. Wilcox, Carl J.
Handbook of Aerology, Vol. III, Site Factor and Variation with Height Computations Test Site.
Memorandum on the Computation of Variation with Height. February 21, 19411.
Mt. Washington with Correction Factors for Anemometer Locations. September 1945.
Original Data—Comparison of Old and New Masts.
Miscellaneous Correspondence—Original Data for Report.
Original Data for Grandpa’s Knob by Months, Southwest Winds Only.
Report on Vertical Velocity Gradients on Grandpa’s Knob. December 1941.
15. Wilcox, Carl J. Report on Vertical Velocity Gradients on Grandpa’s Knob. December 1941.
16. Wilcox, Carl J. Computations on Variation of Velocity with Height, Vol. III, Handbook of Aerology. 1941.
17. Wilcox, Carl J. Mt. Washington Gradient with Correction Factors for Anemometer Locations. September 1945.
18. Wilcox, Carl J. and Dornbirer, S.D. Large-Scale Windpower Analysis. October 1945.
19. Wilcox, Carl J.
Static and Dynamic Characteristics of the Smith-Putnam Wind-Turbine. 1940.
Memorandum on the Computation of Outputs. February 1941.
20. Wilcox, Carl J.
Output Summaries. 1940-1945, Vol IV, Handbook of Aerology.
Anomaly Study. April 1941-December 1946.
21. Wilcox, Carl J. Memoranudum on Diurnal Variation of Output. February 18, 1944.
29. Wilcox, Carl J. Evaluation of the First Run of the Turbine. October 19, 1941.
30. Wilcox, Carl J. and Holley M.J. Memo on Coning Prepared for von Kármán. July 1942.
34. Wilcox, Carl J.
Outputs and Frequency Distribution Curves, New England Sites, Vol. VII, Handbook of Aerology. Eastern US.
Outputs and Frequency Distribution Curves, New England Sites, Vol. XII, Handbook of Aerology.
Outputs and Frequency Distribution Curves for Oceanic Islands and the Maritime Littorals, Vol. VIII, Handbook of Aerology.
35. Wilcox, Carl J.
Cost Study of Induction Generators. 1943.
Synchronous Generation. Optimum Study. 1943.
Summary of Energy Costs Induction and Synchronous Generation. 1943.
36. Wilcox, Carl J. Report on Energy Costs. May 9, 1945.
37. Wilcox, Carl J. Report on Choice of Blade Shape. 1943.
39. Wilcox, Carl J. Report on the Yawing and Pitching Moments Transmitted to the Pintle Axis of the Smith-Putnam Wind Turbine. April 1943.
40. Wilcox, Carl J. and Holley, M.J. Determination of Design Loadings for Blades of Smith-Putnam Win Turbine. May 14, 1945. Summary Reports on each of 10 Loading Conditions.
43. Wilcox, Carl J. Holley, M.J. and Dornbirer, S.D. Report on Cost Study of October 1945.
1. Putnam, Palmer Cosslet. Power from the Wind. Reprinted 1974. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1948.
2. Nielsen, Kristian H. “Technological Trajectories in the Making: Two Case Studies from the Contemporary History of Wind Power.” Centaurus 52, no. 3 (2010): 175–205. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0498.2010.00179.x.
