John Augustus Roebling

John Augustus Roebling (born Johann August Röbling , June 12th 1806 with Mühlhausen, Germany - died the July 22nd 1869 with New York, the United States) was a German civil engineer born known for its suspended bridges with steel wire ropes.

It was formed in the public schools of Mühlhausen and with the royal polytechnic school of Berlin where it studied architecture and engineering, the construction of bridges, hydraulics, the languages and philosophy. It was graduate in 1826. In 1831, Roebling left Germany with his/her Karl brother to flee the general insecurity and oppression in Europe. The October 28th 1831, the two men and a handle of people who accompanied them in their voyage acquired 1582 acres (6,4 km ²) of grounds in the Comté of Butler, Pennsylvania and established an establishment called Saxonburg.

Its first work of engineer on the American ground was to improve the river navigation and to build channels. It spent three years to inspect the railway lines crossing the mountains Allegheny, of Harrisburg to Pittsburgh for the state of Pennsylvania. In 1841, in its workshop of Saxonburg, it invented the steel wire ropes which are the base of its business success and which will be used in all its plans of bridges. It always had been fascinated by the idea of suspended bridges and wrote its thesis on the subject.

In 1844, Roebling gained the offer to replace a Aqueduc of wood through the river Allegheny. Its project comprised seven arches of 163 feet, each one consistent in a wood trunk supported by a steel wire rope on each side. That this project was crowned success was very satisfactory, because many engineers doubted the concept of suspended aqueduct.

In 1845, Roebling built a suspended bridge on the river Monongahela in Pittsburgh. In 1848, it undertook the construction of four aqueducts suspended on the Canal Delaware and Hudson. At the same time, he moved with Trenton, New Jersey.

Its following project began in 1851, it was about a bridge of railroad connecting the New York Central and the Great Western Railway to Canada above the river the Niagara. This project lasted four years. The bridge, length of 825 feet, is supported by four cables of ten inches and has two levels, for the vehicles, the other for the rail traffic.

While the bridge of the Niagara was built, Roebling undertook another railway bridge with suspension on the Kentucky between Cincinnati and Chattanooga, bridge of an arch of 1224 feet. The stone turns were completed, the delivered cables and the material of the superstructure, when the railroad company went bankrupt. The bridge was never completed.

In 1858, Roebling began another suspended bridge with Pittsburgh, of 1030 feet length, divided into two arches of 344 feet and two others of 171.

The bursting of the American Civil War applied a temporary brake at the work of Roebling. In 1863, work on the bridge of Cincinnati began again after a long interruption due to financial problems. The bridge was finished in 1867.

In 1867, Roebling began the plans of the Pont of Brooklyn on the East River with New York. It supervised construction when a ferry crushed the foot to him. He died sixteen days later of Tétanos.

His/her son Washington Roebling continued his work, its great-grandson Donald Roebling was a philanthropist and a famous inventor.

Achievements

1844 Allegheny Aqueduct Bridge Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1846 Smithfield Street Bridge Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1848 Lackawaxen Aqueduct
1849 Roebling' S Delaware Aqueduct
1850 High Falls Aqueduct
1850 Neversink Aqueduct
1854 Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge
1859 Allegheny Bridge
1867 John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge
1869 Waco Suspension Bridge 475 foot span Waco, Texas
1883 Brooklyn Bridge, New York

External bonds

Factory Invention: Detailed biography
Structurae: John Augustus Roebling (1806-1869)

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