REVISIÓN DE LA FACTIBILIDAD FUNCIONAL DE LOS SISTEMAS TÉCNICOS DISEÑADOS POR LEONARDO DA VINCI

Abstract

A large number of the devices, machines and mechanisms designed by Leonardo Da Vinci, represented in their nearly 7000 preserved manuscript pages, only reached the level of conceptual design. Most of Leonardo's scientific-technical projects, due to the lack of technology, procedures and materials appropriate to their designs, never had real application, and none of them endures in our days. Therefore, there is a controversy about whether they could be put into practice with the right instruments and materials, that is, Leonardo must be considered an engineer ahead of his time, or a visionary thinker. During the last decades, different researchers have tried to demonstrate its feasibility and level of benefits. This work demonstrates through different examples (parachute, mobile vehicle, elevator, hygrometer, automatic roasting spit, etc.) that a significant part of the designs of machines and devices of Leonardo, although in his day they were not realized, through the years, they have been feasible and suitable for the functions for which they were designed.