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Chile (Chile) (search for this): entry engineering
0 horsepower, and form a very important part of the plant. The other gravity motors are windmills and wave-motors. Wind-mills are an old invention, but have been greatly improved in the United States by the use of the self-reefing wheel. The great plains of the West are subject to sudden, violent gales of wind, and unless the wheel was automatically self-reefing it would often be destroyed. There have been vast numbers of patents taken out for wave-motors. One was invented in Chile, South America, which furnished a constant power for four months, and was utilized in sawing planks. The action of waves is more constant on the Pacific coast of America than elsewhere, and some auxiliary power, such as a gasoline engine, which can be quickly started and stopped, must be provided for use during calm days. The prime cost of such a machine need not exceed that of a steam plant, and the cost of operating is much less than that of any fuelburning engine. The saving of coal is a very
Berlin (Berlin, Germany) (search for this): entry engineering
branch of engineering. Some of these railways are elevated, and are merely railway viaducts, but the favorite type now is that of subways. There are two kinds, those near the surface, like the District railways of London, the subways in Paris, Berlin, and Boston, and that now building in New York. The South London and Central London, and other London projects, are tubes sunk 50 to 80 feet below the surface and requiring elevators for access. The construction of the Boston subway was diffiay. It was reserved for good John Wesley to point out that Cleanliness is next to godliness. Now sewage works are as common as those for water supply. Some of them have been of great size and cost. Such are the drainage works of London, Paris, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, and New Orleans. A very difficult work was the drainage of the City of Mexico, which is in a valley surrounded by mountains, and elevated only 4 or 5 feet above a lake having no outlet. Attempts to drain the lake had been made
America (Netherlands) (search for this): entry engineering
and stronger ones during the last twenty years. This demand has brought into existence many bridge-building companies, some of whom make the whole bridge, from the ore to the finished product. Before the advent of railways, highway bridges in America were made of wood, and called trusses. The coming of railways required a stronger type of bridge to carry concentrated loads, and the Howe truss, with vertical iron rods, was invented, capable of 150-foot spans. About 1868 iron bridges begano soft and deep for piles and staging, and the cantilever system in this site would have increased the cost. The solution of the problems presented at Hawkesbury gave the second introduction of American engineers to bridge building outside of America. The first was in 1786, when an American carpenter or shipwright built a bridge over Charles River at Boston, 1,470 feet long by 46 feet wide. This bridge was of wood supported on piles. His work gained for him such renown that he was called
Montreal (Canada) (search for this): entry engineering
s the North River some time in the present century. The only radical advance is the use of a better steel than could be had in earlier days. Steel-arched bridges are now scientifically designed. Such are the new Niagara Bridge, of 840-foot span, and the Alexandra Bridge at Paris. That which marks more clearly than anything else the great advance in American bridge building, during the last forty years, is the reconstruction of the famous Victoria Bridge, over the St. Lawrence, above Montreal. This bridge was designed by Robert Stephenson, and the stone piers are a monument to his engineering skill. For forty winters they have resisted the great fields of ice borne by a rapid current. Their dimensions were so liberal that the new bridge was put upon them, although four times as wide as the old one. The superstructure was originally made of plate-iron tubes, reinforced by tees and angles, similar to Stephenson's Menai Straits Bridge. There are twenty-two spans of 240 fee
Harlem River (New York, United States) (search for this): entry engineering
billets can be sold for 2 cents. This stimulates rail and water traffic and other industries, as he tells us 1 lb. of steel requires 2 lbs. of ore, 1 1/3 lbs. of coal, and 1/3 lb. of limestone. It is not surprising, therefore, that the States bordering on the lakes have created a traffic of 25,000,000 tons yearly through the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, while the Suez, which supplies the wants of half the population of the world, has only 7,000,000, or less than the tonnage of the little Harlem River at New York. Industrial engineering. This leads us to our last topic, for which too little room has been left. Industrial engineering covers statical, hydraulic, mechanical, and electrical engineering, and adds a new branch which we may call chemical engineering. This is pre-eminently a child of the nineteenth century, and is the conversion of one thing into another by a knowledge of their chemical constituents. When Dalton first applied mathematics to chemistry and made it qua
Cincinnati (Ohio, United States) (search for this): entry engineering
e bridge, from the ore to the finished product. Before the advent of railways, highway bridges in America were made of wood, and called trusses. The coming of railways required a stronger type of bridge to carry concentrated loads, and the Howe truss, with vertical iron rods, was invented, capable of 150-foot spans. About 1868 iron bridges began to take the place of wooden bridges. One of the first long-span bridges was a singletrack railway bridge of 400-foot span over the Ohio at Cincinnati, which was considered to be a great achievement in 1870. The Kinzua viaduct, 310 feet high and over half a mile long, belongs to this era. It is the type of the numerous high viaducts now so common. About 1885 a new material was given to engineers, having greater strength and tenacity than iron, and commercially available from its low cost. This is basic steel. This new chemical metal, for such it is, is 50 per cent. stronger than iron, and can be tied in a knot when cold. The
Forth Bridge (United Kingdom) (search for this): entry engineering
ronger than iron, and can be tied in a knot when cold. The effect of improved devices and the use of steel is shown by the weights of the 400-foot Ohio River iron bridge, built in 1870, and a bridge at the same place, built in 1886. The bridge of 1870 was of iron, with a span of 400 feet. The bridge of 1886 was of steel. Its span was 550 feet. The weights of the two were nearly alike. The cantilever design, which is a revival of a very ancient type, came into use. The great Forth Bridge, in Scotland, 1,600-foot span, is of this style, as are the 500-foot spans at Poughkeepsie, and now a new one is being designed to cross the St. Lawrence near Quebec, of 1,800-foot span. This is probably near the economic limit of cantilever construction. The suspension bridge can be extended much farther, as it carries no dead weight of compression members. The Niagara Suspension Bridge, of 810-foot span, built by Roebling, in 1852, and the Brooklyn Bridge, of 1,600 feet, built by Roebl
Africa (search for this): entry engineering
in, and the fittest only survives. The American system gives the greatest possible rapidity of erection of the bridge on its piers. A span of 518 feet, weighing 1,000 tons, was erected at Cairo on the Mississippi in six days. The parts were not assembled until they were put upon the false works. European engineers have sometimes ordered a bridge to be riveted together complete in the maker's yard, and then taken apart. The adoption of American work in such bridges as the Atbara in South Africa, the Gokteik viaduct in Burmah, 320 feet high, and others, was due to low cost, quick delivery and erection, as well as excellence of material and construction. Foundations, etc. Bridges must have foundations for their piers. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century engineers knew no better way of making them than by laying bare the bed of the river by a pumped-out cofferdam, or by driving piles into the sand, as Julius Caesar did. About the middle of the century, M. Triger, a Fr
Scotia (search for this): entry engineering
and deep for piles and staging, and the cantilever system in this site would have increased the cost. The solution of the problems presented at Hawkesbury gave the second introduction of American engineers to bridge building outside of America. The first was in 1786, when an American carpenter or shipwright built a bridge over Charles River at Boston, 1,470 feet long by 46 feet wide. This bridge was of wood supported on piles. His work gained for him such renown that he was called to Ireland and built a similar bridge at Belfast. Tunnelling by compressed air is a horizontal application of compressed-air foundations. The earth is supported by an iron tube, which is added to in rings, which are pushed forward by hydraulic jacks. A tunnel is now being made under an arm of the sea between Boston and East Boston, some 1,400 feet long and 65 feet below tide. The interior lining of iron tubing is not used. The tunnel is built of concrete, reinforced by steel rods. Success in
Southwestern States (United States) (search for this): entry engineering
l to the Mississippi River, and the deepening of the Mississippi itself to the Gulf of Mexico, is a logical sequence of the first project. The Nicaragua Canal would then form one part of a great line of navigation, by which the products of the interior of the continent could reach either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. The cost would be small compared with the resulting benefits, and some day this navigation will be built by the government of the United States. The deepening of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River from 6 to 30 feet by James B. Eads was a great engineering achievement. It was the first application of the jetty system on a large scale. This is merely confining the flow of a river, and thus increasing its velocity so that it secures a deeper channel for itself. The improvement of harbors follows closely the increased size of ocean and lake vessels. The approach to New York Harbor is now being deepened to 40 feet, a thing impossible to be done without
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