From 1852 to now in 11 minutes

In 1852, founder Josef Körösi builds an iron foundry in Andritz, at that time a suburban community of the
Styrian provincial capital of Graz, Austria, and thus, lays the foundation for today's ANDRITZ GROUP.

In the same year, the German physicist and chemist Heinrich Gustav Magnus provides evidence of the Magnus effect, a phenomenon of fluid mechanics.

Around the turn of the century, 1890 to 1900, the product portfolio, which originally included various metal goods and later large machines, is expanded to include water pumps, medium-pressure centrifugal pumps and pump equipment for mines with delivery heights of up to 840 meters. 

During the same period, the engine sector sees decisive developments for the future automotive industry. In August 1892, Rudolf Diesel manages to launch his first experimental engine in his machine factory in Augsburg, Germany, and in February 1897, this 10-hp engine is even officially accepted as the first trial diesel engine by the Royal Bavarian Technical University in Munich, Germany. A year before, in 1896, Gottlieb Daimler builds the world's first motorized truck, the Daimler Motorwagen, in Cannstatt near Stuttgart, Germany. The first copy (order number 81) at the Daimler engine company is sold to the British Motor Syndicate in London on 1 October. Apart from the engine and automobile industry, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers the X-rays in November 1895.

From 1920 to 1930, the ANDRITZ pump division expands its existing product range with a delivery program for standard water pumps in the low-pressure range. 

On September 28, 1928, the bacteriologist Alexander Fleming accidentally recognizes that one of his staphylococcus cultures contaminated by molds of the genus Penicillium has been killed. His further investigations lead to the development of the antibacterial substance penicillin and thus, to the recognition of the enormous importance of antibiotics for medicine.

In 1950/51, a license agreement with an Escher-Wyss subsidiary in Ravensburg, Germany, for the construction of complete paper machines lays the foundation stone for the later ANDRITZ business unit for paper and pulp. The pump business is not left untouched either and the first developments and the test operation start with a first test pump from the S1 series in a paper mill in Bruck/Mur, Austria.

In May 1950, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair takes place for the first time, which has also been sponsored by its namesake Intel since 1997. It is the largest pre-university research competition in the world.

In the 1960s, the pump development program of ASTROE triggers a new general boom in the pump business. Behind this abbreviation lies a modern hydraulic engineering laboratory on the company premises – the Anstalt für Strömungsmaschinen (Institute for Hydraulic Research), known as ASTROE for short. Since its establishment in 1954, this ANDRITZ subsidiary has performed important development work with the aid of test rigs for water turbines and various types of pumps and provides facilities to conduct quality checks on hydraulic machines under different conditions at the highest international level. ASTROE, as a testing and inspection facility for hydraulic machines, also received state authorization to issue test certificates with public status in 1959 and has always secured ANDRITZ a top international ranking in the field of hydraulic research.

At about the same time, in 1961, the first manned space flights in history begin. In April, the well-known cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on board of the spacecraft Vostok becomes the first man in space. In the race for supremacy in space, only one month later, in May 1961, the astronaut Alan Shepard starts as the first American into space, who later was also the fifth man on the moon.

To read the remaining 10 minutes of this article simply download the magazine in the section on the left side and learn much more thrilling and unusual things about pumps...