CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CON- STRUCTION OF METALLIC BRIDGES AND OTHER SIMILAR STRUCTURES
Year: 1853

page_text: (This Invention received Provisional Protection, but notice to proceed
with the application for Letters Patent was not given within the
time prescribed by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Jeremiah Iliffe and
James Newman at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 3rd December 1858.
We, HENRY JEREMIAH ILIFFE and JAMES NEWMAN, of Birmingham,
in the County of Warwick, Manufacturers, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CON-
STRUCTION OF METALLIC BRIDGES AND OTHER SIMILAR STRUCTURES " to be as
follows, that is to say :-
Our improvements consist in manufacturing the various parts or
details required in the construction of such like structures as metal
bridges, floors, and aqueducts, and in arranging and combining those
details in such manner that great strength and resistance is obtained
with comparative lightness and economy in labour and material. For
this purpose we propose to employ metallic tubes for every portion of
the structure that will admit of this adaptation.
We now proceed to describe a viaduct constructed on this principle.

page_text: The necessary piers having been erected of iron, wood, or masonry,
longitudinal girders of elliptical or rectangular tubular section traverse
the whole distance between and rest with their ends on the piers.
These girders are in section, of the form of elliptical or rectangular
tubes, having a flange or fin top and bottom, running the entire length
of, and manufactured at the same time as, the ellipse or rectangle.
Where the size required for the girder will admit, we propose to roll
these tubes in two parts of the form of a semi-ellipse or half rectangle
with half fins top and bottom, and afterwards placing them together
bolt or rivet them securely through the flanges or fins. For larger
purposes the tubes may be made of plates rivetted together. These
tubes are secured laterally by transverse tubes passing at intervals
through eyes made for that purpose in the fins, and are further
strengthened by short tubes, each of the length of the distance between
the longitudinal girders, with flanges at both ends; these short tubes
are passed over the transverse girder tube, and cach is firmly secured
between the longitudinal girders by being rivetted through the flanges
at the ends to corresponding flanges round the eyes in the fins of the
longitudinal girders. The transverse girders are placed alternately one
on the upper and one on the lower fin of the long girders. The sides
of the bridge consist of tubular columns rising from the long girders on
either side, and carrying a cornice, and parapet, and roof, constructed
in the same manner as the flooring described; and should it be required
to form a double level bridge for road and railway, the rails for the
latter may be rolled on the fins of the long girders.
The sides of the bridge being open, a balustrade is introduced
between the columns, every member of which is also constructed of
metal, of a tubular form, as also are all the cornices, string courses,
and mouldings used in the structure. The form described and mode
of carrying out the combination of longitudinal and transverse tubular
girders may also be employed for floors of other buildings.