USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, is a three-masted wooden-hulled heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She is the world's oldest commissioned naval warship still afloat. She was launched in 1797, one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed. The name "Constitution" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March of 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed. Joshua Humphreys designed the frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Constitution and her sister ships were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. She was built at Edmund Hartt's shipyard in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. Her first duties were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.
USS Texas was a pre-dreadnought battleship built by the United States in the early 1890s. The first American battleship commissioned, she was built in reaction to the acquisition of modern armored warships by several South American countries, and meant to incorporate the latest developments in naval tactics and design. This includes the mounting of her main armament en echelon to allow maximum end-on fire and a heavily-armored citadel amidships to ensure defensive strength. However, due to the state of U.S. industry at the time, Texas's building time was lengthy, and by the time she was commissioned, she was already out of date. Nevertheless, she and the armored cruiser USS Maine were considered advancements in American naval design.
USS Constellation is a sloop-of-war, the last sail-only warship designed and built by the United States Navy. She was built at the Gosport Shipyard between 1853 and 1855. She was named for the earlier frigate of the same name that had been broken up in 1853. The sloop's primary armament was 8-inch (203 mm) shell-firing guns and four 32-pounder long guns, though she carried other guns as well, including two Parrott rifle chase guns. Constellation's career as a front-line unit was relatively short; after entering service in 1855, she served with the Mediterranean Squadron until 1858, and in 1859, she was assigned as the flagship of the Africa Squadron, where she served with the African Slave Trade Patrol. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the ship returned to the Mediterranean to patrol for Confederate vessels. In late 1864, she returned to the United States to be decommissioned, as most of her crews' enlistments had expired. She spent the rest of the war out of service.
USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600), a George Washington-class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). Initially unnamed and assigned hull classification symbol SSGN-600 as a guided missile submarine, her keel was laid down on 20 May 1958 by the Mare Island Naval Shipyard using components initially assembled for the Skipjack-class submarine nuclear attack submarine USS Scamp (SSN-588). She was named Theodore Roosevelt and redesignated fleet ballistic missile submarine SSBN-600 on 6 November 1958, launched on 3 October 1959, sponsored by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and widow of Nicholas Longworth III, and commissioned on 13 February 1961 with Commander William E. Sims commanding the Blue Crew and Commander Oliver H. Perry Jr. commanding the Gold Crew.
Sir Robert Seppings, FRS was an English naval architect. His experiments with diagonal trusses in the construction of ships led to his appointment as Surveyor of the Navy in 1813, a position he held until 1835.
A beam is a structural element that primarily resists loads applied laterally across the beam's axis. Its mode of deflection is primarily by bending, as loads produce reaction forces at the beam's support points and internal bending moments, shear, stresses, strains, and deflections. Beams are characterized by their manner of support, profile, equilibrium conditions, length, and material.
USS Drum (SS-228) is a Gato-class submarine of the United States Navy, the first Navy ship named after the drum, a type of fish. Drum is a museum ship in Mobile, Alabama, at Battleship Memorial Park.
In structural engineering, buckling is the sudden change in shape (deformation) of a structural component under load, such as the bowing of a column under compression or the wrinkling of a plate under shear. If a structure is subjected to a gradually increasing load, when the load reaches a critical level, a member may suddenly change shape and the structure and component is said to have buckled. Euler's critical load and Johnson's parabolic formula are used to determine the buckling stress of a column.
This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".
A geodetic airframe is a type of construction for the airframes of aircraft developed by British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis in the 1930s. Earlier, it was used by Prof. Schütte for the Schütte Lanz Airship SL 1 in 1909. It makes use of a space frame formed from a spirally crossing basket-weave of load-bearing members. The principle is that two geodesic arcs can be drawn to intersect on a curving surface in a manner that the torsional load on each cancels out that on the other.
The strength of ships is a topic of key interest to naval architects and shipbuilders. Ships which are built too strong are heavy, slow, and cost extra money to build and operate since they weigh more, whilst ships which are built too weakly suffer from minor hull damage and in some extreme cases catastrophic failure and sinking.
This is an alphabetical list of articles pertaining specifically to structural engineering. For a broad overview of engineering, please see List of engineering topics. For biographies please see List of engineers.
In solid mechanics, a bending moment is the reaction induced in a structural element when an external force or moment is applied to the element, causing the element to bend. The most common or simplest structural element subjected to bending moments is the beam. The diagram shows a beam which is simply supported at both ends; the ends can only react to the shear loads. Other beams can have both ends fixed ; therefore each end support has both bending moments and shear reaction loads. Beams can also have one end fixed and one end simply supported. The simplest type of beam is the cantilever, which is fixed at one end and is free at the other end. In reality, beam supports are usually neither absolutely fixed nor absolutely rotating freely.
USS Arneb (AKA-56/LKA-56) was an Andromeda-class attack cargo ship named after Arneb, the brightest star in the southern constellation Lepus. She served as a commissioned ship for 27 years and 3 months, the longest time in commission of any AKA.
USS Alchiba (AKA-6) was an Arcturus-class attack cargo ship of the United States Navy, named after Alchiba, a star in the constellation Corvus. She served as a commissioned ship for 4 years and 7 months.
Adirondack, a steel-hulled side-wheel river passenger steamship displacing 3,882 long tons (3,944 t), was built by J. Eaglis and Sons, at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, in 1896, for the Hudson Navigation Company, the "People's Line". Her keel was laid 8 June 1895, and she was launched within five months, probably October 1895, with her fitting out completed in time for the summer 1896 season.
The draft or draught of a ship is a determined depth of the vessel below the waterline, measured vertically to its hull's lowest—its propellers, or keel, or other reference point. Draft varies according to the loaded condition of the ship. A deeper draft means the ship will have greater vertical depth below the waterline. Draft is used in under keel clearance calculations, where the draft is calculated with the available depth of water to ensure the ship can navigate safely, without grounding. Navigators can determine their draught by calculation or by visual observation.
USS Vega (AK-17), was a Sirius-class cargo ship of the United States Navy, originally the Lebanon — a single-screw, steel-hulled Type 1022 freighter, built under a United States Shipping Board contract at Hog Island, Pennsylvania, by the American International Shipbuilding Co. Laid down on 8 July 1918, the ship was launched on 18 July 1919. Acquired by the Navy on 2 December 1921, she was renamed Vega and given the classification of AK-17. She fitted out for Navy service, and was commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 21 December 1921.
USS Arkab (AK-130) was a Crater-class cargo ship commissioned by the U.S. Navy for service in World War II, named after Arkab, the star in constellation Sagittarius. She was responsible for delivering troops, goods and equipment to locations in the war zone.
Longitudinal framing is a method of ship construction in which large, widely spaced transverse frames are used in conjunction with light, closely spaced longitudinal members. This method, Isherwood felt, lent a ship much greater longitudinal strength than in ships built in the traditional method, where a series of closely spaced transverse frames are fitted from the keel to the sheer line, with corresponding deck beams, a method that is well suited to support longitudinal planking.
