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.
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.
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 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 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]
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]
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 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.
A lattice girder is a truss girder where the load is carried by a web of latticed metal.
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 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 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 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]
William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong was an English industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing concern on Tyneside. He was also an eminent scientist, inventor and philanthropist. In collaboration with the architect Richard Norman Shaw, he built Cragside in Northumberland, the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. He is regarded as the inventor of modern artillery.
James Hall Nasmyth was a Scottish engineer, philosopher, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools. He retired at the age of 48, and moved to Penshurst, Kent where he developed his hobbies of astronomy and photography.
Hydraulic rescue tools are used by emergency rescue personnel to assist vehicle extrication of crash victims, as well as other rescues from small spaces. These tools include cutters, spreaders, and rams. Such devices were first used in 1963 as a tool to free race car drivers from their vehicles after crashes.
William Henry Barlow FRS FRSE FICE MIMechE was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was involved in many engineering enterprises. He was engineer for the Midland Railway on its London extension and designed the company's London terminus at St Pancras.
The year 1871 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Sir William Fairbairn, 1st Baronet of Ardwick 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.
Joseph Bramah, born Stainborough Lane Farm, Stainborough, Barnsley Yorkshire, was an English inventor and locksmith. He is best known for having invented the hydraulic press. Along with William George Armstrong, he can be considered one of the two fathers of hydraulic engineering.
Matthew Murray was an English steam engine and machine tool manufacturer, who designed and built the first commercially viable steam locomotive, the twin cylinder Salamanca in 1812. He was an innovative designer in many fields, including steam engines, machine tools and machinery for the textile industry.
Henry Rossiter Worthington was an American mechanical engineer, inventor, industrialist and founder of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1880.
A hydraulic power network is a system of interconnected pipes carrying pressurized liquid used to transmit mechanical power from a power source, like a pump, to hydraulic equipment like lifts or motors. The system is analogous to an electrical grid transmitting power from a generating station to end-users. Only a few hydraulic power transmission networks are still in use; modern hydraulic equipment has a pump built into the machine. In the late 19th century, a hydraulic network might have been used in a factory, with a central steam engine or water turbine driving a pump and a system of high-pressure pipes transmitting power to various machines.
William Bridges Adams was an English author, inventor and locomotive engineer. He is best known for his patented Adams axle — a successful radial axle design in use on railways in Britain until the end of steam traction in 1968 — and the railway fishplate. His writings, including English Pleasure Carriages (1837) and Roads and Rails (1862) covered all forms of land transport. Later he became a noted writer on political reform, under the pen name Junius Redivivus ; a reference to a political letter writer of the previous century.
A jack, screwjack or jackscrew is a mechanical device used as a lifting device to lift heavy loads or to apply great forces. A mechanical jack employs a screw thread for lifting heavy equipment. A hydraulic jack uses hydraulic power. The most common form is a car jack, floor jack or garage jack, which lifts vehicles so that maintenance can be performed. Jacks are usually rated for a maximum lifting capacity. Industrial jacks can be rated for many tons of load.
Nathan Read was an American engineer and steam pioneer.
A riveting machine is used to automatically set (squeeze) rivets in order to join materials together. The riveting machine offers greater consistency, productivity, and lower cost when compared to manual riveting.
A hydraulic intensifier is a hydraulic machine for transforming hydraulic power at low pressure into a reduced volume at higher pressure.
"Fowler's Ghost" is the nickname given to an experimental fireless 2-4-0 steam locomotive designed by John Fowler and built in 1861 for use on the Metropolitan Railway, London's first underground railway. The broad gauge locomotive used exhaust recondensing techniques and a large quantity of fire bricks to retain heat and prevent the emission of smoke and steam in tunnels.
John McFarlane Gray, also known as J. Macfarlane Gray, was a Scottish engineer who invented a portable steam riveting machine and a steam steering mechanism for Isambard Kingdom Brunel's famous SS Great Eastern.
Tweddell may refer to: