Eaton Hodgkinson
Eaton Hodgkinson Salford, Lancashire, England | |
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Nationality | English |
Occupation | Engineer |
Eaton Hodgkinson FRS (26 February 1789 – 18 June 1861) was an English engineer, a pioneer of the application of mathematics to problems of structural design.
Early life
Hodgkinson was born in the village of
However, farming was no more to his taste than
He married twice, to Catherine Johns and to a Miss Holditch. There were no children.
Scientific work
Hodgkinson measured the strength of columns of materials including cast iron and marble in a series of experiments.[1]
Hodgkinson worked with Sir William Fairbairn in Manchester on the design of iron beams, especially on the Water Street bridge for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1828–30. His improved cross section was published by the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1830 and influenced much nineteenth century structural engineering. He derived the empirical formula for a concentrated load, W (in tons), at which a beam will fail as a function of its length between simple supports, L (in inches); its depth, d (in inches); and its bottom-flange area, A (inch²):
His expertise with beams led to his retention, along with Fairbairn, as consultant on the novel tubular design for the Britannia Bridge. Fairbairn built and tested several prototypes, and developed the final form adopted for the bridge. Both Hodgkinson and Robert Stephenson believed that extra chains would be needed to support the heavy spans, so the towers were built with spaces for the chains. Fairbairn, however, insisted that chains would not be necessary, and his opinion prevailed. He was right, and chains were never used, but the towers remain with their empty recesses.
Later years
Hodgkinson was elected a Fellow of the
Towards the end of his life, his mental faculties failed and he died at
See also
References
- ^ Henry Moseley. Illustrations of Mechanics. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, Paternoster-Row. 1839. Page 403.
Bibliography
- Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Enquire into the Application of Iron to Railway Structures (1849) cmd. 1123, HMSO
- ISBN 0-521-46108-1
- Rawson, R (1865) "Memoir of Eaton Hodgkinson", Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol II, reprinted in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution (1868), pp203–230
- Timoshenko, S. P. (1953) History of Strength of Materials, pp126–129