The life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer Part 22

On the West Cornwall Railway a type of viaduct similar to that described above was adopted; but as the general height was not so great, the spans were 50 feet each, and the longitudinal beams were supported at three points in each span, instead of at four as on the Cornwall Railway. In consequence of the nature of the foundations, the piers of the nine viaducts on this line were for the most part formed of upright timbers well braced together, standing upon masonry footings. The viaduct at Angarrack, 98 feet high, with 16 spans, which was constructed in 1851, was remarkable for its light appearance, owing to the small number of timbers in the superstructure and piers.

Mr. Brunel paid great attention to the preservation of the material of the timber bridges and viaducts. As early as 1835 he had been in communication with Mr. Faraday as to the best method of testing the extent to which the Kyanising solution penetrated into wood. Mr. Brunel made a careful trial of all the different methods of preserving timber, and employed the more successful of them on a very considerable scale.

He was so impressed with the importance of the preserving processes being properly applied, that he on several occasions preferred to keep the operation of preserving the timber in the hands of the Company, in order that it might be done thoroughly, and under his own supervision.

He also minutely attended to the details by which timber structures may be protected from decaying influences.

_Cast-Iron Bridges_.

Mr. Brunel did not make an extensive use of cast iron for the superstructure of bridges. His views as to the employment of this material in girders are clearly expressed in the following extract from a letter to one of the Directors of the Great Western Railway:--

April 18, 1849.

Cast-iron girder bridges are always giving trouble--from such cases as the Chester Bridge, and our Great Western road bridge at Hanwell, which, since 1838, has always been under repair, and has cost its first cost three times over, down to petty little ones, which, either in frosty weather or from other causes, are frequently failing. I never use cast iron if I can help it; but, in some cases it is necessary, and to meet these I have had girders cast of a particular mixture of iron carefully attended to, and I have taught them at the Bridgewater foundry to cast them with the f.l.a.n.g.e downwards instead of sideways. By these means, and having somebody always there, I ensure better castings, and have much lighter girders than I should otherwise be obliged to have. The number I have is but few, because, as I before said, I dislike them, and I pay a price somewhat above ordinary castings, believing it to be economy to do so.

I won't trust a bridge of castings run in the ordinary way, and at foundries where I have not a person always watching; and, even if I did, the weight requisite in a beam of ordinary metal and mode of running would more than make up for the reduced price.

The bridge at Hanwell referred to in this letter was one on the main line of the Great Western Railway, over the Uxbridge road. In 1847 the planking caught fire, and the cast-iron girders were destroyed by the heat.

The researches of Mr. Eaton Hodgkinson had drawn attention to the importance of a proper proportionment of the top and bottom f.l.a.n.g.es of cast-iron girders, and Mr. Brunel now made some experiments on this point. As part of this investigation, eight girders, 30 feet long and 16 inches deep, were tested by weights until they gave way. The comparative areas of the top and bottom f.l.a.n.g.es were varied until a correct proportion between the two was arrived at. The general result of these large-scale experiments showed a lower breaking-weight than that deduced from Mr. Hodgkinson's formula.

When Mr. Brunel afterwards had occasion to use cast-iron girders, which was chiefly for road bridges over railways, they were made of the form which his experiments had shown to be the best;[94] but he repaired the Hanwell Bridge with wrought iron.

At about the same time the necessity for spanning wide openings had led to larger girders being required than could be manufactured in single castings, and Mr. Brunel had a large cast-iron girder made, 46 feet long and 4 feet deep, of five pieces bolted and keyed together. It was tested until it gave way with a load of 92 tons on the middle. The result showed that the several parts had been well connected, and that the strength of the beam was not much less than the calculated strength of a beam of the same size in a single piece. Mr. Brunel did not, however, use girders of this construction, as the rapid introduction of wrought iron rendered it unnecessary.

Cast iron was introduced, though not for girders, in many of the brick and stone bridges on the Great Western Railway. It was used in the form of troughs sunk into the crown of the arch in bridges where the headway was very limited. The rails were laid along the bottom of the trough within a few inches of the soffit or underside of the arch.

Although, after the careful experiments and investigations he had made, and the experience he had obtained, Mr. Brunel did not make use of cast iron for large girders, he looked forward to the possibility of such improvements being introduced into the manufacture as would enable sound castings of considerable size to be made of h.o.m.ogeneous material.

He expressed this opinion in a letter to the Secretary of the Commission on the Application of Iron to Railway Structures. This Commission (which Mr. Brunel called 'The Commission for stopping further improvements in bridge building') was appointed 'for the purpose of inquiring into the conditions to be observed by engineers in the application of iron in structures exposed to violent concussions and vibration.' Mr. Brunel, in common with most engineers, thought it would be very inexpedient that any _regles de l'art_ should be laid down, and took up the cudgels boldly on behalf of the liberty of the profession:--

March 13, 1848.

At present cast iron is looked upon, to a certain extent, as a friable, treacherous, and uncertain material; castings of a limited size only can be safely depended upon; wrought iron is considered comparatively trustworthy, and by riveting, or welding, there is no limit to the size of the parts to be used. Yet, who will venture to say, if the direction of improvement is left free, that means may not be found of ensuring sound castings of almost any form, and of twenty or thirty tons weight, and of a perfectly h.o.m.ogeneous mixture of the best metal? Who will say that beams of great size of such a material, either in single pieces or built, may not prove stronger, safer, less exposed to change of texture or to injury from vibration, than wrought-iron, which in large ma.s.ses cannot be so h.o.m.ogeneous as a fused ma.s.s may be made and which when welded is liable to sudden fracture at the welds?[95]

_Wrought-Iron Bridges._

Notwithstanding the cost of wrought iron, but a short time elapsed between its introduction into bridge building and its use in structures of great magnitude. Mr. Brunel had been long familiar with the application of riveted wrought-iron work, and he was the first to encourage its use on a large scale in shipbuilding by recommending its adoption in the 'Great Britain' steam-ship in 1838.

_Girder Bridges._

The strains on girders made of h.o.m.ogeneous material have been carefully and ably calculated by mathematicians; and the investigations thus made have directed inquiry into the right channels for determining the nature of the stresses on the several parts of the built-up structures now so much in use. Principles have by degrees been laid down, and lines of thought have been suggested and followed out which were unknown at the time when wrought-iron girders were first introduced in the construction of railway bridges.[96]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Scale of feet_.

Fig. 6. Experimental Girder.

_Transverse Section_.]

Shortly after Mr. Brunel began to use wrought iron for bridge girders, he made an experiment in order to determine the weak points of a large wrought-iron plate-girder. Mr. Edwin Clark, in his work on the 'Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges,' vol. i. p. 437, gives a description of what he justly terms 'this magnificent experiment.' The girder was of the section shown in the woodcut (fig. 6), 70 feet in length, and of -inch plate throughout. It was weighted gradually, and gave way with a load of 165 tons on the centre, by the tearing apart of the vertical web plate near the ends of the girder. When this portion had been strengthened, and the girder again loaded, it gave way with a load of 188 tons by the simultaneous failure of the top and bottom f.l.a.n.g.es, that is to say, of the plates forming the triangles shown in the woodcut.[97]

The superior tensile strength of wrought iron to that of cast iron, and the facility with which pieces could be joined together by riveting, enabled girders of great size to be made. The thin wrought-iron plates were arranged so as to form the top and bottom f.l.a.n.g.es of the girders as well as the upright web connecting them. The metal in the top of a girder being in compression, it was important so to dispose it that it should resist the tendency to yield sideways under the strain. This requirement was met in the experimental girder by the triangular section of the top f.l.a.n.g.e; and the convenience of this form for joining together a number of plates, without difficulty or the use of long rivets, led Mr. Brunel to use the triangular section also for the bottom f.l.a.n.g.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Scale of feet._

Fig 7. Girder on South Wales Railway, 70 feet span.

_Transverse Section._]

Subsequent improvements in the facilities for bending wrought-iron plates enabled him to use a form of cross section of wrought-iron girder, the top f.l.a.n.g.e of which was a nearly circular tube, the best shape of strut to resist longitudinal compression. It is shown in the woodcut (fig. 7), and was used in many of his bridges.

This form was afterwards modified to that shown in fig. 8. The semicircular top plate is stiffened by occasional cross diaphragms, and while it was a good form to resist compression, it was more easily painted than the closed-in top f.l.a.n.g.es shown in figs. 6 and 7.

The forms of wrought-iron girder already referred to are those known as plate girders, with continuous webs made of plates riveted together, and therefore a.n.a.logous to the beams of cast iron which they almost entirely superseded. On Mr. Brunel's railways there are a great number of bridges of these forms of girder, where the spans do not exceed 100 feet. For larger spans he used wrought iron, in large and deep trussed frames, by which means a great degree of economy was attained in the employment of the material.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Scale of feet._

Fig. 8. Girder on Eastern Bengal Railway, 92 feet span.

_Transverse Section._]

The care which he had taken to satisfy himself of the action of the strains in plate girders was of service in all the greater structures he designed, as in all of them he employed wrought-iron girders to carry the roadway, of a type somewhat similar to those already described, the girders being supported at frequent intervals by the main framework or truss.

_Opening Bridges._

The first large opening bridge which Mr. Brunel constructed was a roadway swing bridge, 12 feet wide, across the new lock at the Bristol Docks. The length of the overhanging end is 88 feet, and the other, or tail end, which is 34 feet long, rests upon two wheels, which travel on a circular rail. The weight of the overhanging end is rather more than counterbalanced by large blocks of cast iron, forming part of the pavement of the tail end. Almost the whole weight is borne on a centre pivot, a.s.sisted by four wheels in fixed bearings, upon which runs an inverted circular rail attached to the underside of the bridge. On the pivot, which rests on a large cast-iron bed-plate, are two discs, one of steel and the other of bra.s.s, which can readily be lubricated, or taken out and renewed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Scale of feet._

Fig. 9. c.u.mberland Basin Swing Bridge.]

On the sides of the bridge are longitudinal wrought-iron plate-girders.

The top f.l.a.n.g.e is pear-shaped, and the bottom f.l.a.n.g.e triangular, having three curved plates. The f.l.a.n.g.es are connected together by a vertical plate web of wrought iron. The section is shown on the woodcut (fig. 9).

It admits of very simple riveting, without the use of angle irons. The form of the bottom f.l.a.n.g.e is suited to the compressive strain it has to bear when the bridge is being moved. The top f.l.a.n.g.e has also wrought-iron tie-bars within the tube. When the bridge is across the lock and open for traffic, the overhanging end rests on cams, which are tightened up so as to lift and support the ends of the girders. As the bridge rests almost entirely on a pivot of small diameter, it turns with great ease.

Near Gloucester there are two skew swing bridges somewhat similar to each other in arrangement. Almost all the weight while turning is supported on the piston of a hydraulic press, and the bridge therefore turns round on the water in the cylinder. The first bridge is on the main line of railway leading to South Wales, across a branch of the River Severn, and is for two lines of way. It has three girders, 125 feet long, of the form shown in fig. 7 (p. 194). The water pivot is in the middle of the length of the bridge, which spans two openings of 50 feet on the square. Before being turned the bridge was intended to be lifted slightly off its bearings by the hydraulic press, and steadied by four wheels, on which a portion of the weight was to be made to rest by long springs within the girders, the range of which was to be limited in one direction by a fixed stop. The central pier consists of five cylinders of cast iron, each 6 feet in diameter, filled with concrete, surmounted by a cast-iron ring or roller path. The railway company was obliged to make this an opening bridge in order to provide for the free navigation of the river should the old stone bridge lower down be altered. This has not been done, and the railway swing bridge, constructed in 1851, has not yet been opened.

The other swing bridge at Gloucester is on the Dock branch, for one line of way, with an opening of 50 feet on the square, the overhanging length of the girders being 70 feet. While raised from its bearing and turning on its water pivot it is steadied by two tail wheels, like the bridge at the Bristol Docks.

On the Bullo Pill branch of the South Wales Railway there is a small wrought-iron drawbridge, for one line of way, of 30 feet span. It is a lifting bridge on the _bascule_ principle, like many bridges over ca.n.a.ls in this country and in Holland. The opening part turns on a horizontal axle, and is lifted by rods attached to the ends of two large beams or levers, turning vertically, which are supported above the railway on a timber framework. At the other ends of these beams is a counterbalance weight. The bridge is opened or shut by pulling down either end of the beams with a small chain.

The other bridges are on the main line of the South Wales Railway, and are four in number, each for two lines of way.

One at Loughor is a wrought-iron swing bridge, of 30 feet opening, of the ordinary construction, with girders 90 feet in length, resting upon 36 rollers, which are secured in a ring concentric with the pivot. The opening and closing is effected by means of a crab, fixed clear of the bridge, near the centre. A chain pa.s.ses from the overhanging end of the bridge to this crab, and taking one or two turns round the barrel, to ensure a sufficient amount of friction, is led to the tail end. The bridge can thus be opened or shut by turning the crab handle in opposite directions. The overhanging end, when across the river, is raised upwards to a small extent by weighted levers, and wedges are then drawn in under it to give it a solid bearing.