George Washington Bridge Test Cable Section, 1929
date: label: date made
content: 1929
name: label: maker
content: Roebling
notes: label: Description
content: In the 1840s John A. Roebling had pioneered in cold-drawing wire for suspension bridges, a process that imparted strength. The firm run by his heirs contracted for the steel work in both anchorages and all the cables for the George Washington Bridge.
label: Description
content: Laying up each main cable entailed first making "strands"-bundles each comprising 434 wires-on site. Then 61 of these strands were banded into a virtually solid member of enormous tensile strength. A single 196-inch wire could carry a load exceeding 7,000 pound; 26,474 of them (the number here) combined can support more than 92,000 tons.
label: Description
content: To determine the bore of the compression bands (from which the "suspenders" were to hang), the company compacted this test section just as the actual cables would be. This section weighs 34,000 pounds even though it is only 10 feet long. Each of the bridge's completed cables stretched nearly a mile.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: New Jersey, Trenton
topic: label: Subject
content: Bridges
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of CF&I Steel Corporation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MC.330393
label: catalog number
content: 330393
label: accession number
content: 288882
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Cable Section, Bridge