Ralph Hart Tweddell

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Ralph Hart Tweddell was featured in an article in Cassier's Magazine in January 1895, accompanied by this photo. Ralph Hart Tweddell - Cassier's 1895-01.png
Ralph Hart Tweddell was featured in an article in Cassier's Magazine in January 1895, accompanied by this photo.

Ralph Hart Tweddell (25 May 1843 – 3 September 1895) was a British mechanical engineer, known particularly for inventing the portable hydraulic riveter, which greatly facilitated the construction of boilers, bridges and ships.

Rivet Permanent mechanical fastener

A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite to the head is called the tail. On installation, the rivet is placed in a punched or drilled hole, and the tail is upset, or bucked, so that it expands to about 1.5 times the original shaft diameter, holding the rivet in place. In other words, pounding creates a new "head" on the other end by smashing the "tail" material flatter, resulting in a rivet that is roughly a dumbbell shape. To distinguish between the two ends of the rivet, the original head is called the factory head and the deformed end is called the shop head or buck-tail.

Contents

Early life

Tweddell was born in South Shields in 1843. His father, Marshall Tweddell, was a shipowner. He was educated at Cheltenham College, with the intention of entering the army. However, more interested in engineering, he was apprenticed to R and W Hawthorn, a locomotive manufacturer in Newcastle upon Tyne. [1] [2]

South Shields coastal town at the mouth of the River Tyne, England

South Shields is a coastal town in the North East of England at the mouth of the River Tyne, about 3.7 miles (6.0 km) downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne. Historically in County Durham, the town has a population of 75,337, the third largest in Tyneside after Newcastle and Gateshead. It is part of the metropolitan borough of South Tyneside which includes the towns of Jarrow and Hebburn. South Shields is represented in Parliament by Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck. The demonym of a person from South Shields is either a Geordie or a Sand dancer.

Cheltenham College independent school in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England

Cheltenham College is a co-educational independent school, located in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. One of the public schools of the Victorian period, it was opened in July 1841. A Church of England foundation, it is well known for its classical, military and sporting traditions, and currently has approximately 640 pupils.

R and W Hawthorn Ltd was a locomotive manufacturer in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, from 1817 until 1885.

During his apprenticeship he took out a patent in 1865 for a portable hydraulic apparatus for fixing the ends of boiler tubes in tube plates. The encouraging results suggested that hydraulic power should be used for machines used in boiler construction. [1]

Fire-tube boiler

A fire-tube boiler is a type of boiler in which hot gases pass from a fire through one or (many) more tubes running through a sealed container of water. The heat of the gases is transferred through the walls of the tubes by thermal conduction, heating the water and ultimately creating steam.

In 1865 he designed a stationary hydraulic riveting machine. This was more effective than the existing mechanical riveting machines, which usually did not make steam-tight joints in the boilers of steamships, which were by then operating under higher pressure than before. The plant, consisting of a pump, an accumulator, and a riveter, was first used by Thompson, Boyd & Co., of Newcastle. [1] [2]

The portable riveter

In 1871 Tweddell invented a portable riveter, so that the work did not have to be brought to the machine. It was manufactured by Fielding & Platt; an early user was Armstrong, Mitchell and Company in Newcastle. In 1873 it was used in riveting a lattice girder bridge carrying Primrose Street over the Great Eastern railway at Bishopsgate railway station in London. The success of this led to its use in the construction of other bridges. [1] [2]

Fielding & Platt Hydraulic engineering firm

Fielding & Platt was a firm of hydraulic engineers who were an important part of the manufacturing sector in Gloucester until the 1990s. Started by two Lancashire men, Samuel Fielding and James Platt, the firm exploited the portable hydraulic rivetting technology of Ralph Hart Tweddell to build a business that exported hydraulic machinery worldwide. Apart from the wide range of items made, the firm was particularly noted for the quality and long-life of their products.

Lattice girder

A lattice girder is a truss girder where the load is carried by a web of latticed metal.

Bishopsgate railway station grade II listed train station in London Borough of Tower Hamlets, United kingdom

Bishopsgate was a railway station located on the eastern side of Shoreditch High Street in the parish of Bethnal Green on the western edge of the East End of London and just outside the City of London.

The portable riveter was first used for locomotive work by F. W. Webb at Crewe Works. It was also used for agricultural machinery, for underframes of railway carriages, and by the Italian government for gun-carriages. In France, Tweddell's system was used when in 1874 the French government began to build iron warships in Toulon, and it was later used at the shipyard at Penhoët near Saint-Nazaire, and at Brest. [1] [2]

Crewe Works British railway engineering facility

Crewe Works is a British railway engineering facility built in 1840 by the Grand Junction Railway. It is located in the town of Crewe, in Cheshire. It is currently owned by Bombardier Transportation.

Saint-Nazaire Subprefecture and commune in Pays de la Loire, France

Saint-Nazaire is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.

In 1885 he was awarded a gold medal, under the Howard Trust, at the International Inventions Exhibition in South Kensington for "his system of applying hydraulic power to the working of machine tools, and for the rivetting and other machines which he has invented in connection with that system". [3]

He wrote the paper "On Machine Tools and Labour-saving Appliances worked by Hydraulic Pressure" for the Institution of Civil Engineers, for which he was awarded the Telford Medal and premium in 1883. He sent three papers to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers including "On the Application of Water Pressure to Shop-tools and Mechanical Engineering Works". In 1890 a paper entitled "The Application of Water Pressure to Machine Tools and Appliances" was awarded a Bessemer Premium by the Society of Engineers. [1]

He became a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1867. From 1879 he was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was also a member of the Société des ingénieurs civils de France  (fr ) from 1879. [1] [2]

In 1875 Tweddell married Hannah Mary Grey. In his spare time he was interested in hunting, shooting and fishing. He died in 1895 at his home near Gravesend in Kent, two years after a riding accident which affected his health. [1] [2]

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Tweddell may refer to:

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Wikisource-logo.svg  Boase, George Clement (1899). "Tweddell, Ralph Hart". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography . 57. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 385–386.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ralph Hart Tweddell Grace's Guide: 1896 Institution of Civil Engineers: Obituary; 1895 Institution of Mechanical Engineers: Obituary; accessed 6 December 2015.
  3. The Morning Post, 13 August 1885