Squire Whipple
Squire Whipple was an American intrument maker, surveyor, and civil engineer.
Born 16 September 1804 in Hardwick, Massachusetts.
He was educated at the Fairfield Academy in Herkimer, New York, and then at Union College in Schenectady. He then served an apprenticeship on railways.
Whipple is best known for his bridge designs, which featured iron trusses using wrought and cast iron in a very economical way. He patented designs for a bowstring bridge truss (1841) and a lift-draw bridge (1872).
In 1847 he published 'A Work on Bridge Building: Consisting of Two Essays, the One Elementary and General, the Other Giving Original Plans, and Practical Details for Iron and Wooden Bridges', and ' An Elementary and Practical Treatise on Bridge Building' in 1869.
Whipple died on 15 March 1888 in Albany, New York.
'During the first fifteen years of railroad building in America, the timber trestle was the prevailing form of bridge. It was in 1840 that Howe patented his form of truss, and in 1844 the Pratt truss was patented. Prior to 1850, railroad bridges were built by practical men who had no knowledge of stresses or strains, nor of the effects produced upon the various members by the rolling load; they were dependent entirely upon their own observations and, to some extent, upon the results of crude experiments upon models. The honour of developing the scientific method of calculating stresses in the various members of truss bridges is generally conceded to belong to Squire Whipple who brought the method forward in 1847.'[1]
Note: Iron trusses had been used for many years in roof construction, and it seems likely that the stresses in those, at least, would have been addressed by their designers using 'scientific methods'.
For a bewildering array of various truss types, see here.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ From Report No. 4, by M. L. Byers, for discussion at the eighth session of the Railway Congress: reproduced in the Railway News, 30 October 1909