IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF BRIDGES, VIADUCTS, ROOFS, AND FLOORINGS, AND IN APPARATUS FOR THE PURPOSE
Year: 1870

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Julius Roberts, of the Old Rectory House,
Seaford, in the County of Sussex, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF BRIDGES, VIADUCTS, ROOFS, AND FLOORINGS,
AND IN APPARATUS FOR THE PURPOSE."
Sealed the 28th April 1871, and dated the 31st October 1870.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Julius Roberts at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
31st October 1870.
I, JULIUS ROBERTS, of the Old Rectory House, Seaford, in the County
of Sussex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF BRIDGES, VIÂDUCTS, ROOFS, AND FLOORINGS,
AND IN APPARATUS FOR THE PURPOSE," to be as follows:
The object of my Invention is to construct bridges, viaducts, and also
roofs and floorings of buildings in a light and yet strong manner by
means of metallic ropes or cables which are to be laid between two
extreme ends by screws or other appliances and firmly anchored within
a cylinder, to which access can be obtained by a well or opening. I

page_text: first fit a temporary platform between the end buttress and the inter-
mediate piers, if any are required, on which the cables are laid; the
cables are then drawn tight by means of the said screws or other
appliances. Upon these cables a flooring is to be laid, and it is fixed to
the transverse girders at intervals for giving rigidity to the roadway
or traffic surface.
The bridge, viaduct, roof, or flooring may be formed horizontally, or
may have any required gradients to suit the desired design of the
structure. The cylinder in which the tightening screws are arranged is
approached by a man-hole, by which workmen can obtain admission
for tightening up any of the cables should any slackness arise. The
temporary flooring need only be used when large spans or chasms have
to be crossed, such as in bridge building, and when the structure is
finished the temporary platform is removed.
66
"
The apparatus consists of machinery for "serving" the metallic ropes
or cables with iron or steel or other suitable material as a <<
selvagee
and a monkey for driving piles, the monkey being composed of two or
more parts connected by lugs and bolts. I lay down a tramway for two
or more wheels on cach rail, the rails being either smooth rails or
ratcheted with the wheels to tooth into them. For the ratchet and
pinion wheels I regulate their dimension and travel according to the
diameter of the selvagee. In the case of the smooth rails I use the
clipping and close binding of the selvagee round the
rope or strands"
forming the rope, whether continuous as strands or rope laid, and in
either case selvageed to assist the forward motion of the machine on
the rails, wholly or in part. I also apply crank handles by hand or other
motive power to advance the machine in proportion to the selvagee
work. I carry on the machine (which is borne on the rails by four or
more wheels) a drum of sufficient diameter to carry a coil of selvagee for
.the entire length of the rope to be selvageed. This drum is either with
its axis in the line of the rope to be selvageed or across it, in the former
case it may be most convenient to arrange its centre of rotation that
the rope may pass freely through it, rotating upon small spherical balls
in a circular tube to receive them and take the bearings, so that by the
rotation of the drum, in either case governed by the diameter of
the selvagee and the advance of the machine consequent thereupon,
the drum will deliver its coil. That in front or behind this drum a
56
"marlin form of tool adapted to the diameter of the rope may advance
"

page_text: with the machine carrying the drum of selvagee coil, and the coil of
selvagee be delivered to this "marlin tool" by a projecting bent tube
conformable to the easy bend of the selvagee rope, and the corresponding
speed of the "marlin tool” with the required delivery from the drum.
The motion of rotation of the "marlin tool" and respectively that of
the "drum" is regulated by suitable "pinions" attached to the frame
put into motion by manual labour or other power. The rope to be
selvageed is securely fixed behind the advance of the selvagee machine,
and throughout laid on tressels which are removable and replaced to
support the rope as the machine advances. The rope throughout its
entire length is first to be closely clipped (and at very short intervals)
by either suitable clips to compress all the "strands " within the
smallest possible circumference, or by slight iron wire in three or four
coils put on hot, but not so hot as to affect the annealing of the rope
strands, and so by cooling to effect a contraction together of the rope in
a circular section either the clips or the coils to be removable as the
selvagee machine advances. An adjustable "top and bottom tool" to
conform the rope to the proper bond of its strands is to be used as the
clips or coils are put on.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Julius Roberts in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 29th April 1871.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JULIUS
ROBERTS, of the Old Rectory House, Seaford, in the County of Sussex,
5 send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Thirty-first day of October, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy, in the thirty-
fourth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Julius Roberts, Her special licence
that I, the said Julius Roberts, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Julius Roberts, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others,
from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,

page_text: within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CON-
STRUCTION OF BRIDGES, VIADUCTS, ROOFS, AND FLOORINGS, AND IN APPARATUS FOR
THE PURPOSE," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said
Julius Roberts, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and scals, should
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same
to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months
next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Julius Roberts, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings
hereunto annexed, that is to say:—
The object of my Invention is to construct bridges, viaducts, and
also roofs, and floorings of buildings (and spans of arches and girders)
in a light and yet strong manner by means of metallic ropes or cables
of which each is to be made of Bessemer steel or other homogeneous
strands of wire proof to a required strain without stretch, connected
together in a longitudinal bundle by a selvagee so as to become com-
bined into one compact rope. The size and number of these strands of
wire are to be calculated according to the proof strain of the required
structure. These ropes are to be laid upon a temporary staging or
flooring, between any two points of their attachment to suitable fastenings
each in a right line without the slightest sinuosities or curvatures, the
staging or flooring supporting them in a true level and rectilinear line
until their ends are firmly secured to the fastenings, which must be
unyielding in their construction and afford perfect resistance to the load
weight the ropes have to bear and the weight of the structure. The
ends of these ropes are to be swelled by cones of iron inserted into the
middle of the strands, guarded by sufficiently strong shrunk rings or wire
frappings so that each strand comes in contact with the surface of the
swell of the cone and thus its full strength is developed.
over the cone the strands are clipped by another shrunk
ends secured as a wall knot or otherwise so as to ensure a fastening
equal to the full strength of the rope. These ends are then connected
by powerful screw couplings to land ties on either shore, or extremity.
After passing
ring, and the

page_text: These may consist of cylinders to which access is afforded by a man-hole
so that the cables may be adjusted. When the superstructure which
these ropes is intended to support and carry is completed the platform,
staging, or centreing is to be removed leaving the ropes supported by
the attachments at either end. The temporary flooring need only be
used where large spans or chasıns have to be crossed. I employ these
ropes either laid upon a platform or staging all in the same plane or
similarly, laid in series of two or more ropes, one above the other. In
the former case transverse girders at sufficient distances apart to prevent
lateral oscillation of the cables and to connect them together are placed
beneath the cables and connected to a flooring of iron or other material
above them, the ropes lying between them, these girders. and, flooring
clipping the series. of ropes securely between them, and upon the ends
of these girders: the standards for the balustrades of the bridge or viaduct
are secured. In the latter case the ropes are laid for great spans in
series of two or more, one above the other, similarly supported, and
between them are inserted transverse girders formed of two plates of
angle or T iron of a thickness and depth sufficient to connect the cables
rigidly together and extending beyond the width of the bridge or viaduct.
so as to carry the standards of the balustrades. At the point where
the ropes pass, the one over and the other under, a block of teak or other
nonconducting material is inserted and bolted between the two plates
of the girder, within which block or bar of Bristol or other metal is
inserted with which the ropes above and below are in contact, the ropes
being preserved from galvanic action by a non-conducting coating herein-
after described.. Midway between each of these transverse girders a
coupling link clips the upper and lower ropes of each series, so as to
slightly compress them together, and in this link is inserted a chock of
Bristol or other metal so that the vertical expansion or contraction of
the Bristol or other metal will counteract or take up any longitudinal
expansion or contraction that may be caused in the ropes by changes
of temperature. Through means of the slight sinuosity given to the
ropes by the girders keeping each pair of ropes apart, and the coupling
links contracting them slightly together, all the strands of each rope
are in alternate tension and compression, and thus the tensile strength
of each strand is developed. Upon the cables are laid over the whole
surface of the bridge and rivetted to them by clips to the girders by.
angle or Tirons, plates of suitable thickness overlapping each other
and rivetted together. The road and footways are then laid upon this

page_text: iron flooring. The angle or Tirons which secure the flooring to each
girder may be increased in height, if necessary, to alter the inclination
or form of the roadway, which may be formed horizontally or may
have any required gradients to suit the desired design of the structure.
These ropes may also be employed in the same manner for the purpose
of girders for short spans or for joists, for roof, or floorings, where the
tensile strength of the ropes secured as before provided at their ends to
the extremities of the span may be used in connection with arched
cast or wrought-iron girders, so that by the combination of the com-
pression and tensile strength of these several materials in the same
manner as tie rods are commonly employed in connection with the
arched floorings of buildings a greatly increased strength as compared
with the same material in a solid form is obtained, and by this means I
am enabled to effect larger spans with a very small amount of material.
The means by which I construct this form of girder is as follows:-
I connect one or more ropes laid as before stated, the ropes to be of a
size suitable to their required proof strain, to springers or skew backs
between which I place either cast or wrought-iron beams or girders of
any required curve or arch, the upper portion of the beam being above
the whole and free of the ropes. The size and strength of this girder
nced be only sufficient to resist the tensile strain of the ropes. The
tendency to deflection from compression of any such form of beam or
girder is thus controlled by the tensile strength of the ropes.
For the driving of the piles necessary for the staging and flooring to
lay the ropes upon, and especially where the piles are being driven
through elastic ground, I employ a monkey composed of two or more
parts. Each part being coupled to the other by bolts passing through
lugs on the sides of the parts forming the monkey, or by bolts in the
vertical centre of each part keyed thereto with sufficient play to leave
about one or more inches between each part when the monkey is
suspended, the lower part being heavier than the one above, but each
part being secured to the pile engine in the same manner as a solid
monkey. By the employment of this form of monkey I get rid of the
rebound which takes place in the ordinary form of monkey caused by
the elasticity of the material of the pile. The gravitating effects of the
lower and heavier part being followed in quick succession by the upper,
the reverberation is sustained throughout the pile and its descent is
accelerated without destroying its fibre.

page_text: .
treated; the rope is finally covered with a non-conducting and anti-
corrosive preparation to exclude atmospheric action upon it.
The Invention will be fully understood by reference to the accompanying
Drawings in which Figure 1 is a partial transverse section of a bridge
and Figure 2 a partial side view of the same with the ropes a, a, laid a
fixed distance apart, in double rows, one above and the other below
the transverse girders b, b, and into which they rest by a series of
grooves or recesses formed for their reception; the ends of these girders
have the standards c, c, for supporting the balustrades of the bridge
fitted to them. The ropes a, a, are tied in their respective recesses by
clips d, d, which are held in place by the keys e, e, or by screw pins
as desired. These clips are of staple form and are preferably dropped
over the two ropes of each top and bottom row, and the key forms the
means of clipping them in place. Each set of ropes is as it were laid
side by side as seen in Figure 3 and reach from one end buttress to
the other, where they lead through the carth next the buttress wall to
a tube f, ás represented in Figure 4, and are there attached to screwing
up links g, g, which can be turned to tighten the ropes to obtain the
necessary strain. These tubes f, f, are provided with stay or tie bars h, h,
to prevent the sides collapsing under the strain, and also with man-holes
or outlets leading to wells or shafts to permit of workmen gaining
admission to them for the purpose of turning the links g, g, and drawing
the ropes tighter should slackness occur at any time. The tubes are
buried in the earth at a sufficient distance from the river wall to obtain
the required resistance against the strain of the ropes and thus the
tautness is maintained.
If a river or chasm of comparatively small width has to be spanned
no intermediate supporting piers are required, but where the reverse
is the case the additional piers or supports can be employed with
advantage, and the ropes are laid upon the fixed flooring or upon trans-
verse girders placed thereon, as will be understood by referring to
Figures 5, 6, and 7, which represent respectively a half transverse
sectional elevation, a partial plan, and a longitudinal section of an
intermediate pier or support to prevent sagging of the ropes. These
piers are constructed in the ordinary manner of iron columns, filled
with brickwork, concrete, or other material to obtain solidity, the
columns being in sections bolted together through the wings or inner
flanges so that a flush appearance is given to the outside. The tubes

page_text: "
or cylinders in which the screw links are arranged need not in all cases
be buried below the level of the ground, as when a foot bridge or
" cross
over" on a railway is required. I fit the cylinder in the upper portions
of the supporting piers or uprights and I stretch the ropes in a hori-
zontal line between them. In this case the ropes need not be below
the flooring as sufficient rigidity of the structure can be obtained by
arranging them at the outside or inside of the span girders or flooring
supporters. These ropes also serve to connect the sockets or shoes of
breast summers of buildings and maintain the solidity of the same for
supporting the weight they are intended to bear, as shown in Figures 8
and 9. This form of support can be used for roofs or other parts of
buildings, or structures of any kind. The ropes, as before stated, are not
made up of wires and then twisted together, but of continuous lengths,
and these are kept in close contact by rings or clips shrunk, bolted, or
rivetted thercon at intervals to form as it were bundles; by this means
each wire takes its share of the strain without imparting a side or frictional
strain upon its neighbour, but twisted or plaited wire ropes or cables
can be employed if found necessary as the apparatus for tightening up
is available for all kinds of metallic rope. I however prefer to use the
ropes constructed as first explained, and these in many cases I "serve
or selvagee with a thinner wire, as shown in Figure 15, or a series of
wires in lieu of or in connection with the clip rings to bind them
together. If I "serve" or selvagee the rope, I use a travelling carriage
for supporting the selvageeing wire or wires on a cylinder or bobbin
which is caused to rotate and give off the wire at the same time. The
rope is first passed through the bobbin and as the carriage moves
along on tram or other rails by the power imparted to it by a winch
handle, as shown in Figures 10 and 11, the selvagecing is accomplished
by the "marline tool" A, which is in close contact with the rope and
revolves round it. The machine tool revolves at a quicker speed than
the bobbin and takes up the slack which would otherwise be formed by
reason of the difference of the two diameters. Both the bobbin and the
marline tool are steadied in their rotation by friction rollers bearing
against their flanges. Spherical bodies are also used between the end
frame and the bobbin to keep it in the same line of axis. The friction
rollers are held between circular rings which are kept at the proper
distances apart by H or Tirons, as shown in Figure 12. Figures 13
and 14 represent two ways of connecting the blocks forming the monkey
for pile driving. In Figure 13 I have shown lugs or eyes in the sides of

page_text: the blocks for pins or bolts to pass through; there is sufficient play from
the length of the bolts to permit a separation of the two blocks without
disconnection during the lifting, and for the blocks to meet to give the
required impact or blow on the head of the pile in the fall, thus the
force of the blow created by the fall is concentrated upon the pile
without a recoil of the block as is the case with the usual form of
monkey. In Figure 14 I show a link which works in a hollow of
each half of the block, and I retain this link in place by transverse
pins.
.
And having now described the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I claim,—
Firstly. The construction of bridges, viaducts, roofs, and floorings in
'the manner described and shewn.
Secondly. The employment of wire ropes of the form described for
ties or stays between two distant points when used in the manner and
for the purposes mentioned.
Thirdly. I claim the means of and apparatus for straining and keeping
taut the wire ropes substantially as described and shown.
Fourthly. The apparatus for "serving" or "selvageeing" wire ropes
as described and shown.
And, fifthly. I claim the employment of monkeys or pile driving
blocks of two or more pieces linked together substantially in the manner
and for the purposes set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said Julius Roberts, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-ninth day of April One thousand
eight hundred and seventy-one.
Witness,
H. GARDNER,
166, Fleet Street,
London.
JULIUS ROBERTS. (L.S.)