IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHIPS AND SIMILAR FLOATING STRUCTURES
Year: 1884

page_text: I JOSEPH WHITLEY of Hunslet Road Leeds in the County of York Founder
and Engineer do hereby declare the nature of my Invention for IMPROVEMENTS
IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHIPS AND SIMILAR FLOATING STRUCTURES and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement:-
Whereas ships and similar floating structures have hitherto been built of plates
forged from Ingot Iron steel or other metal in single pieces ny improvements
consist in the building of ships and similar floating structures from plates formed
as described in my specification number 137 of January 1st 1884 By this mode of
construction I secure a far greater total strength flexibility and ductility together
with a density and homogeneity that has never hitherto been attained and for the
simple reason that the base of the strength of all metallic structures is to be found
in their respective surfaces therefore in proportion as we multiply the surface in
composite plates formed of separate sheets or by folding long ones in the process of
imanufacture we increase the strength in proportion to the number of surfaces in
all such composite plates hence ships and other structures built of composite plates
have a strength buoyancy and general flexibility hitherto unknown. When I
proceed to build a ship to any given lines I lay the keel and fix the prow and
stern post and having attached my base frame stay and girder work each of which
is made up of composite Iron steel or other metallic plates coated on their interior
surfaces with red lead or other non oxidizable substance and having adjusted the
whole of the rib bottom and frame work of the hold and moulded my plates to the
required form I then proceed to place my composite plates in position with rivets
as heretofore and thus I proceed to the completion of the ship or other structure.
In the building of ships on the before mentioned principles it is essential that no
distortion of the sheets composing the plates should be suffered to take place
whilst bending planing shaping drilling or punching the same and which I prevent
by placing a few tie rivets within the ultimate lines the plates have to be worked
to ships so built have a flexibility and buoyancy not hitherto attained together
with a superior structural strength in proportion to the number of folds or sheets
contained in the piates so constructed. Hence ships so built may have any
amount of flexibility so as to enable them to resist all ordinary collision without
[Price 271

page_text: being rent open the flexibility of all the parts of the total structure yielding to the
force of the collision received and which force now destroys the plates by rending
them asunder in the vicinity of the blow and thereby causing ships to founder.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
Invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is
First The construction of ships and similar floating structures of composite
plates substantially as hereinbefore described.
Second. The coating of the inner surfaces of the plates substantially as
herein before described.
Third The introduction of stay rivets substantially as hereinbefore described.