William Fairbairn
Sir William Fairbairn Kelso, Scotland | |
---|---|
Died | 18 August 1874 Moor Park, Farnham, England | (aged 85)
Nationality | British |
Known for | Structural ironwork Shipbuilding Locomotives Lancashire Boiler |
Sir William Fairbairn, 1st Baronet of Ardwick Bt FRS (19 February 1789 – 18 August 1874) was a Scottish civil engineer, structural engineer and shipbuilder. In 1854 he succeeded George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson to become the third president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.[2]
Early career
Born in
Structural studies
Fairbairn was a lifelong learner and joined the
Shipbuilding
When the cotton industry fell into recession, Fairbairn diversified into the manufacture of boilers for locomotives and into shipbuilding. Perceiving a ship as a floating tubular beam, he criticised existing design standards dictated by Lloyd's of London.
Fairbairn and Lillie built the
Fairbairn drew on his experience with the construction of iron-hulled ships when designing the Britannia Bridge and Conwy Railway Bridges.
Railway locomotives
Fairbairn began building railway locomotives in 1839 with an 0-4-0 design for the Manchester and Bolton Railway. By 1862 the company had constructed more than 400 at Millwall for companies such as the Great Western Railway and the London and North Western Railway. However, as the works had no rail access, any locomotives had to be shipped by road.[4]
Boilers
Fairbairn developed the
He experimented with glass cylinders and was able to show that the
This knowledge of how hoop stress increased with diameter, and how stresses were independent of drum length led to his invention of the Fairbairn-Beeley and his five-tube boilers, where a single large diameter shell was replaced by multiple smaller, and less stressed, shells. Eventually this would lead to the near-universal adoption of water-tube boilers with small tubes for high pressures, replacing the older fire-tube designs.
Investigations
Fairbairn was one of the first engineers to conduct systematic investigations of failures of structures, including the collapse of
Fairbairn conducted some of the first serious studies of the effects of repeated loading of wrought and cast iron girders, showing that fracture could occur by crack growth from incipient defects, a problem now known as fatigue. He built large-scale testing apparatus for the studies, and was partly funded by the Board of Trade.
He also conducted experiments on pressurized cylinders of glass and was able to show that the highest
Honours
- Fellow of the Royal Society elected 1850 (Gold Medal 1860)
- President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1854–1855.[2][8]
- President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (1855–1859)[9]
- Elected in February 1860 to the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers[10]
- Appointed Baronet, (of Ardwick), 2 November 1869;[11] he had declined a knighthood in 1861[12]
- A statue stands in Manchester Town Hall
- Conferred with Honorary Membership of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland in 1859.[1]
- President of the British Association 1861[13]
- Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1862[14]
- Inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame in 2017.[2]
Fairbairn is one of several notable engineers to be buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Prestwich. The number of people present at his funeral was estimated at from 50,000 to 70,000.[15]
Works
- Remarks on Canal Navigation. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green. 1831. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges. London: John Weale. 1849. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- Fairbairn, William (1851). Two Lectures: The Construction of Boilers, and on Boiler Explosions, with the means of prevention.
- On Tubular Girder Bridges. London: W. Clowes and Sons. 1851. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- On the Application of Cast and Wrought Iron to Building Purposes (1st ed.). London: John Weale. 1854. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- Useful Information for Engineers. London: Longmans. 1856.
- Iron, Its History, Properties, and Processes of Manufacture. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. 1861. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- Treatise on Mills and Millwork, Part I. London: Longmans, Green and Company. 1863. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- Treatise on Mills and Millwork, Part II. London: Longmans, Green and Company. 1871. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- Experiments to determine the effect of impact, vibratory action, and long continued changes of load on wrought iron girders, (1864) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London vol. 154, p311
- Treatise on Iron Ship Building: Its History and Progress (1st ed.). London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1865. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- The Principles of Mechanism and Machinery of Transmission. Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird. 1871. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
Further reading
- The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, Bart., (ed. W. Pole, 1877)
- Richard Byrom (2017). William Fairbairn: The Experimental Engineer. ISBN 978-0901461643
See also
References
- ^ "William Fairbairn (1789–1874)". Art UK. Public Catalogue Foundation. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
- ^ a b "Past Presidents". Retrieved 15 June 2017.
- ^ Young, C.F.T. (1867). "Chapter 3". The Fouling and Corrosion of Iron Ships: Their Causes and Means of Prevention, with Mode of Application to the Existing Iron-Clads. Chronology of Iron Ships. London: London Drawing Assoc.
- ^ Marshall, John (1978). A biographical dictionary of railway engineers. Newton Abbot: David & Charles.
- ISBN 0-7506-5493-7.
- ISBN 1-85573-505-9.
- ^ "Steam boiler examinations" (PDF). Health and Safety Executive. 18 November 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 July 2008. Retrieved 7 January 2011.
- ^ "Presidents' gallery". Retrieved 15 June 2017.
- ^ Complete list of the members and officers of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. Manchester. 1896. p. 9. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
- ISBN 0-7277-1526-7.
- ^ "No. 23544". The London Gazette. 8 October 1869. p. 5446.
- ^ "Sir William Fairbairn". Retrieved 9 September 2019.
- ^
"Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9067. Retrieved 25 November 2011. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter F" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
- ^ Pole, William. "Life of Sir William Fairbairn Chapter XXIII". Retrieved 9 September 2019.
External links
- Media related to William Fairbairn at Wikimedia Commons