Alexander George Rotinoff (1875-1934)
1875 Born in Russia
Formerly a Russian subject
Chief Engineer of West's Rotinoff Piling and Construction Co
1934 Died in Kensington
1934 Obituary[1]
Civil engineers will learn with regret of the sudden death of Mr. Alexander George Rotinoff, which occurred at his home in South Kensington, London, on April 26. Mr. Rotinoff, who was chief engineer and designer of new plant, and also a director of Messrs. West's Rotinoff Piling and Construction Company, Limited, Regent House, Kingsway, London, W.C.2, was formerly a Russian subject and was born on March 20, 1875. He received his general education at the Classical College, Tiflis, in the Caucasus, and, in 1893, entered the University of Petrograd as an engineering student. After studying for five years, he received a Degree of the first order in civil engineering, in 1898, and, in the following year, was appointed assistant engineer on the Russian State Railways and sent into the Caucasus to supervise the erection of bridges. In 1902, Mr. Rotinoff took up the Hennebique system of reinforced-concrete construction and, during the next ten years, did much to develop it in Southern Russia and the Caucasus. He designed and carried out a large number of structures and bridges, the most important being that at Gory, in Caucasia. This work comprised three 165-ft. spans and caisson and piling foundations.
During the European war, Mr. Rotinoff served in the Engineer Corps of the Russian Army, in which he held the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Among other works, he was responsible for the foundations of the Choroch Bridge on the Turkish front. From 1916 to 1918, he was on official missions in Sweden and in England, and at the conclusion of hostilities began his investigations and experiments, which eventually culminated in the introduction of the now well-known Rotinoff piling system. In addition to his positions of chief engineer and director of Messrs. West’s Rotinoff Piling and Construction Company, Limited, Mr. Rotinoff was, in 1930, appointed consulting engineer to a company formed in Belgium, carrying out work of a similar nature, and styled Messrs. Fondations Rotinoff Belges. Some years ago, Mr. Rotinoff was also responsible for the development of a new process for sinking caissons by compressed air, and in 1932-33 this process, and the new method of taking a set of the caissons with falling kentledge, was adopted for the first time for the Newport Bridge over the Tees, at Middlesbrough by the consulting engineers, Messrs. Mott, Hay, and Anderson. Mr. Rotinoff was responsible for the design of the caisson plant, and the sinking operations, this being one of the last works upon which he was engaged.
He was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers as recently as February 6, 1934, and was also a member of the Institution of Structural Engineers and of the Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France. Mr. Rotinoff became a naturalised British subject in January, 1932.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Engineering 1934