Background
Educated in Liverpool and London, Robert D. Napier worked, with brothers John D. and Francis ("Frank") for his father"s shipbuilding firm.
Educated in Liverpool and London, Robert D. Napier worked, with brothers John D. and Francis ("Frank") for his father"s shipbuilding firm.
At the age of 30, he moved to Australia, where he oversaw dredging operations in Sydney Harbour. While there, he invented the "Differential Self-Acting Friction Brake" and the "Napier Windlass". In 1856 he brought out to Portuguese Adelaide, South Australia in sections, a paddle-steamer Moolgewanke for trading on the River Murray.
He was also involved with Captain
William McCoy in operating the paddle steamer Leichardt. Napier also experimented and wrote on a number of important scientific topics.
He is best known for his 1866 work "On the Velocity of Steam and other Gases, and the True Principles of the Discharge of Fluids". This work was one of the earliest discussions of the diverging nozzle, later known as the de Laval nozzle.
lieutenant presented the well-known "Napier formula" for steam loss through an orifice.
He also wrote a number of papers on the flow of water through nozzles.