Civil War era technology?

"Don Stauffer" wrote

Yeah, that's what I meant by "about". To be fair, I think the prof said "iron", not "cast iron", because wrought iron was certainly available then. Bessemer steel was a mid-1850's thing but steel wasn't common until 1875 when the Edgar Thompson Works opened. For a long time the only rolled steel shapes were rails - no I-beams, angles, etc. (*) Steel was more common in mechanical parts - machine parts, needles, knives, stuff like that.

Another point of context: It wasn't until the 1880's that engineers used F=ma as a starting point for structural design. Before then, it was pretty much empirical, "This bridge is twice as long as that one, so I'll make the beams twice as big".

(*) Watervliet Arsenal has an "Iron Building" from 1859 that is made from wrought iron shapes sheathed in cast iron panels.

KL

Google CSS Hunley.

Right.

There were a few arc light systems in the early 1860s, but they were enormous things, and not likely to be found in a boat. You could, however, have gas lights.

Many of us make steam vapor from pieces from cotton balls, fluffed up by hand, or angel hair used for Xmas decorations.

"Kurt Laughlin" wrote

??? I use arithmetic but have no math past beginning algebra, and that was back in 1968. But I understand your example... "Before then, it was pretty much empirical, "This bridge is twice as long as that one, so I'll make the beams twice as big".

Newton's 1st Law of Motion F)orce = M)ass x A)cceleration

WmB

" WmB" wrote

Yeah, let me clarify a bit.

I'm attending college part-time now [was going full-time for over a year] and slowly but surely working on my 'senior project' in 3D modeling and animation, titled "Oh the men will cheer and the boys will shout...." based on an 'alternative history' or 'alternative Earth' scenario after the Monitor/Virginia naval battle and after the Monitor later sank [while it was being towed for repairs? I'll research that].

But unlike real history, where what was left of the Monitor was partially raised over a century later, in my project she's deftly raised intact only a few days later by the secret "United States Federal Navy Submersible Boat 'J. H. Howland*'" --an 'ironclad' salvage & recovery sub MUCH bigger than the Monitor-- [gotta think big, right?] and carried off underwater for refurbishing to fight again.

In Avid 'Softimage XSI', I'll be designing, modeling, animating and texturing both craft, seabed, effects [escaping air/steam, churned up sand, underwater floodlights, etc.] as well as creating the text, background graphics and adding existing appropriate music. The whole wretched mess will be put together in Adobe 'Premier'... all of which I'll be graded on, and which project will be the centerpiece of my 'demo tape' portfolio [I already have degrees in technical and biomedical graphics] that I'll show to perspective employers in the video game companys in and surrounding Seattle here.

Most assuredly!... but none of which I'll have to tackle. I've been asking questions here to get a feel of what I might/might not be able to get away with for my sub's final configuration. It's for an 'alternative history' setting, after all.

Actually for an expanded career. I was laid-off from Boeing Commercial in Everett WA after 911.

Scouts honor... I promise I won't! ^_^

Ah.. it is clear to me now, grasshopper. Carry on. ;-) And best of luck on the new career path.

WmB

Actually, F=ma is for dynamics, not statics. Statics was used for bridge design for centuries before dynamic stability was worried about (after Tacoma narrows bridge failure). Any ex-servicemen remember breaking into route step when crossing bridges?

Anyway, statics for bridge design was used as early as late eighteenth century, widely used in early nineteenth. Statics uses a lot of trigonometry, but very few differential equations until one gets to bending beams. Builders in early nineteenth century did not like to bend beams, used truss structures with almost all loads in either tension or compression.

Just to put a finer point on it...

Being one half of the field of study known as Mechanics, statics is a condition of Newton's First Law where a=0. If Kurt had posted F=0, I doubt anyone would have known what he was talking about. ;-)

WmB

" WmB" wrote

Yes. Any analysis begins with a free body diagram, followed by a summation of forces which must equal zero to be in static equilibrium. And, despite being statics, a significant force in any suspended structure is still be the mass of the system multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity, which is rarely zero in terrestrial structures like bridges. . .

KL

The point I was trying to make, and I see I didn't do too good a job, is that statics can be done with high school trig, and doesn't need differential equations and calculus, like dynamic analysis does. Most civil engineers in nineteenth century started out apprenticing as surveyors, where they learned lots of trig, but not calc. Thus the nineteenth century civil engineer could nicely analyse truss type structures using statics. It was not just a test and make it stronger till it works. The tensile and compressive strengths of wood, cast iron, wrought iron, and the early steels was known. It was a lot harder for them to analyse a straight cantilever span, however. And things like resonance was certainly beyond most of them.

As it has already been said Steel was a Expensive very High Ticket item in very short supply at that point. The bulk of what was made was Cast Iron. I live about 15 North of a Iron Works that ran Day & Night during the Civil War years. They cast Cannon and Cannon Balls for the Union Army. Most of these furnaces were wood fired , this particular Furnace was Coal Fired to give it a hotter & more controllable heat source in melting all the Iron Ore they used this had the effect of rendering up a Much Better Final Product. But then it was right here in New York it's only One of many that Dot the Region up here. Some of them in worse shape then they have been able to restore this one to.

The use of Iron by far out-weighed the use of Steel or almost any other metal in use at the this juncture of time in our History.

And I still say that you just Can Not put the words "CIVIL WAR and Technology" in the Same Sentence. It just does not make any Real sense to me here at all

... Carl ..........

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You obliviously don't know war do you ?

The Civil War is replete with technological advances, just the Hunley alone was a major military milestone.......

Allan

I've no idea if this is valid science or not [some of y'all will no doubt dissect it], but I just happened across this dialogue from Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues...." book published in 1875: the date relevant to some degree in this thread. =====================

"Perfectly, Captain Nemo; but the air that you carry with you must soon be used; when it only contains fifteen per cent of oxygen it is no longer fit to breathe."

"Right! But I told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the Nautilus allow me to store the air under considerable pressure, and on those conditions the reservoir of the [earlier described 'aqua lung'] apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine or ten hours."

"I have no further objections to make," I answered. "I will only ask you one thing, Captain--how can you light your road at the bottom of the sea?"

"With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax; one is carried on the back, the other is fastened to the waist. It is composed of a Bunsen pile, which I do not work with bichromate of potash, but with sodium. A wire is introduced which collects the electricity produced, and directs it towards a particularly made lantern. In this lantern is a spiral glass which contains a small quantity of carbonic gas. When the apparatus is at work this gas becomes luminous, giving out a white and continuous light. Thus provided, I can breathe and I can see."

"Captain Nemo, to all my objections you make such crushing answers that I dare no longer doubt."