William Fairbairn
Encyclopedia
Sir William Fairbairn, 1st Baronet
(of Ardwick
) (19 February 1789 – 18 August 1874) was a Scottish
civil engineer
, structural engineer
and shipbuilder.
to a local farmer
, Fairbairn showed an early mechanical aptitude and served as an apprentice millwright
in Newcastle upon Tyne
where he befriended the young George Stephenson
. He moved to Manchester
in 1813 to work for Adam Parkinson and Thomas Hewes. In 1817, he launched his mill-machinery business with James Lillie as Fairbairn and Lillie Engine Makers
.
Fairbairn was a life-long learner and joined the Institution of Civil Engineers
in 1830. In the 1820s and 30s, he and Eaton Hodgkinson
conducted a search for an optimal cross section
for iron
-beam
s. They designed, for example, the bridge over Water Street for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
, which opened in 1830. In the 1840s, when Robert Stephenson
, the son of his youthful friend George, was trying to develop a way of crossing the Menai Strait
, he retained both Fairbairn and Hodgkinson as consultants. It was Fairbairn who conceived of the idea of a rectangular tube or box girder
to bridge the large gap between Anglesey
and North Wales
. He conducted many tests on prototypes in his Millwall shipyard and at the site of the bridge, showing how such a tube should be constructed. The design was first used in a shorter span
at Conway
, and followed by the much larger Britannia Bridge
. The tube bridge ultimately proved far too costly a concept for widespread use owing to the sheer mass and cost of wrought iron
needed. Fairbairn himself developed wrought iron trough bridges which used some of the ideas he had developed in the tubular bridge.
industry fell into recession
, Fairbairn diversified into the manufacture of boiler
s for locomotive
s and into shipbuilding
. Perceiving a ship as a floating tubular beam, he criticised existing design standards dictated by Lloyds of London.
Fairbairn and Lillie built the iron
paddle-steamer Lord Dundas at Manchester in 1830. The difficulties which were encountered in the construction of iron ships in an inland town like Manchester led to the removal of this branch of the business to Millwall
, London in 1834-5. Here Fairbairn constructed over eighty vessels, including the Pottinger of 1250 tons, for the Peninsular and Oriental Company
; the Megaera
and other vessels for the British Government, and many others, introducing iron shipbuilding on the River Thames
. In 1848 he retired from this branch of his business.
Fairbairn drew on his experience with the construction of iron-hulled ships when designing the Britannia Bridge
and Conwy Railway Bridge
s.
design for the Manchester and Bolton Railway
. By 1862 the company had constructed more than 400 at Millwall for companies such as the Great Western Railway
and the London and North Western Railway
. However, as the works had no rail access, any locomotives had to be shipped by road.
, raising and lowering a 3 tonne
mass onto a wrought iron
cylinder 3,000,000 times before it fracture
d and showing that a static load of 12 tonne
was needed for such an effect.
He experimented with glass cylinders and was able to show that the hoop stress
in the wall was twice the longitudinal stress. When a cylindrical boiler failed, it usually fractured along its length owing to the high hoop stress in the wall.
Fairbairn was one of the first engineers to conduct systematic investigations of failures of structures, including the collapse of textile mills and boiler explosion
s. His report on the collapse of a mill at Oldham showed the poor design methods used by architects when specifying cast iron girders for supporting heavily loaded floors, for example. In another report, he condemned the use of trussed cast iron girders, and advised Robert Stephenson
not to use the concept in a bridge then being built over the river Dee
at Chester
in 1846. The bridge collapsed in May 1847, killing 5 people who were passengers on the local train passing over the structure at the time. The Dee bridge disaster
raised concerns about the integrity of many other railway bridges already built or about to be built on the rail network.
Fairbairn conducted some of the first serious studies of the effects of repeated loading of wrought and cast iron girders, showing that fracture could occur by crack growth from incipient defects, a problem now known as fatigue
. He built large-scale testing apparatus for the studies, and was partly funded by the Board of Trade
.
He also conducted experiments on pressurized cylinders of glass and was able to show that the highest stress
in the wall occurs around the diameter. It is known as the hoop stress
and is twice the value of the longitudinal stress which occurs along the length of the cylinder. The precise value depends only on the wall thickness and the internal pressure. His work was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society and was of great help in analysing failures in steam boilers and pipes. In 1854 he founded the Manchester Steam Users' Association, which quickly became recognised as setting national standards for high-pressure steam boilers. As the "Associated Offices Technical Committee" of British insurers the MSUA remains a national certification authority.
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
(of Ardwick
Fairbairn Baronets
The Fairbairn Baronetcy, of Ardwick in the County of Lancaster, is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 2 November 1869 for the prominent Scottish engineer William Fairbairn. Another member of the family to gain distinction was Bernard Fairbairn , grandson of William...
) (19 February 1789 – 18 August 1874) was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
, structural engineer
Structural engineer
Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants...
and shipbuilder.
Early career
Born in KelsoKelso, Scotland
Kelso is a market town and civil parish in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. It lies where the rivers Tweed and Teviot have their confluence...
to a local farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
, Fairbairn showed an early mechanical aptitude and served as an apprentice millwright
Millwright
A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...
in Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
where he befriended the young George Stephenson
George Stephenson
George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives...
. He moved to Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
in 1813 to work for Adam Parkinson and Thomas Hewes. In 1817, he launched his mill-machinery business with James Lillie as Fairbairn and Lillie Engine Makers
William Fairbairn & Sons
William Fairbairn and Sons, was an engineering works in Manchester, England.-History:William Fairbairn opened an iron foundry in 1816 and was joined the following year by a Mr. Lillie, and the firm became known as Fairbairn and Lillie Engine Makers, producing iron steamboats.Their foundry and...
.
Structural Studies
Institution of Civil Engineers
Founded on 2 January 1818, the Institution of Civil Engineers is an independent professional association, based in central London, representing civil engineering. Like its early membership, the majority of its current members are British engineers, but it also has members in more than 150...
in 1830. In the 1820s and 30s, he and Eaton Hodgkinson
Eaton Hodgkinson
Eaton A. Hodgkinson was an English engineer, a pioneer of the application of mathematics to problems of structural design.-Early life:...
conducted a search for an optimal cross section
Cross section (geometry)
In geometry, a cross-section is the intersection of a figure in 2-dimensional space with a line, or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, etc...
for iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
-beam
Beam (structure)
A beam is a horizontal structural element that is capable of withstanding load primarily by resisting bending. The bending force induced into the material of the beam as a result of the external loads, own weight, span and external reactions to these loads is called a bending moment.- Overview...
s. They designed, for example, the bridge over Water Street for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North...
, which opened in 1830. In the 1840s, when Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson FRS was an English civil engineer. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer; many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son.-Early life :He was born on the 16th of...
, the son of his youthful friend George, was trying to develop a way of crossing the Menai Strait
Menai Strait
The Menai Strait is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales.The strait is bridged in two places - the main A5 road is carried over the strait by Thomas Telford's elegant iron suspension bridge, the first of its kind,...
, he retained both Fairbairn and Hodgkinson as consultants. It was Fairbairn who conceived of the idea of a rectangular tube or box girder
Box girder
A box or tubular girder is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, rather than an or H-beam. Originally constructed of riveted wrought iron, they are now found in rolled or welded steel, aluminium extrusions or pre-stressed concrete....
to bridge the large gap between Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...
and North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
. He conducted many tests on prototypes in his Millwall shipyard and at the site of the bridge, showing how such a tube should be constructed. The design was first used in a shorter span
Conwy Railway Bridge
Conwy railway bridge carries the North Wales coast railway line across the River Conwy between Llandudno Junction and the town of Conwy. The wrought iron tubular bridge was built by Robert Stephenson to a design by William Fairbairn, and is similar in construction to Stephenson's other famous...
at Conway
Conwy
Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...
, and followed by the much larger Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge is a bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales. It was originally designed and built by Robert Stephenson as a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans for carrying rail traffic...
. The tube bridge ultimately proved far too costly a concept for widespread use owing to the sheer mass and cost of wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...
needed. Fairbairn himself developed wrought iron trough bridges which used some of the ideas he had developed in the tubular bridge.
Shipbuilding
When the cottonCotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
industry fell into recession
Recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...
, Fairbairn diversified into the manufacture of boiler
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...
s for locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
s and into shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
. Perceiving a ship as a floating tubular beam, he criticised existing design standards dictated by Lloyds of London.
Fairbairn and Lillie built the iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
paddle-steamer Lord Dundas at Manchester in 1830. The difficulties which were encountered in the construction of iron ships in an inland town like Manchester led to the removal of this branch of the business to Millwall
Millwall
Millwall is an area in London, on the western side of the Isle of Dogs, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the south of the developments at West India Docks, including Canary Wharf.-History:...
, London in 1834-5. Here Fairbairn constructed over eighty vessels, including the Pottinger of 1250 tons, for the Peninsular and Oriental Company
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company
The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which is usually known as P&O, is a British shipping and logistics company which dated from the early 19th century. Following its sale in March 2006 to Dubai Ports World for £3.9 billion, it became a subsidiary of DP World; however, the P&O...
; the Megaera
HMS Megaera (1849)
HMS Megaera was originally constructed as an iron screw frigate for the Royal Navy, and was one of the last and largest ships built by William Fairbairn's Millwall shipyard....
and other vessels for the British Government, and many others, introducing iron shipbuilding on the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
. In 1848 he retired from this branch of his business.
Fairbairn drew on his experience with the construction of iron-hulled ships when designing the Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge is a bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales. It was originally designed and built by Robert Stephenson as a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans for carrying rail traffic...
and Conwy Railway Bridge
Conwy Railway Bridge
Conwy railway bridge carries the North Wales coast railway line across the River Conwy between Llandudno Junction and the town of Conwy. The wrought iron tubular bridge was built by Robert Stephenson to a design by William Fairbairn, and is similar in construction to Stephenson's other famous...
s.
Railway locomotives
Fairbairn began building railway locomotives in 1839 with an 0-4-00-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven...
design for the Manchester and Bolton Railway
Manchester and Bolton Railway
The Manchester and Bolton Railway was a railway in the historic county of Lancashire, England, connecting Salford to Bolton. It was built by the proprietors of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Navigation and Railway Company who had in 1831 converted from a canal company...
. By 1862 the company had constructed more than 400 at Millwall for companies such as the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
and the London and North Western Railway
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
. However, as the works had no rail access, any locomotives had to be shipped by road.
Boilers
Faibairn developed the Lancashire boiler in 1844. In 1861, at the request of the UK Parliament, he conducted early research into metal fatigueMetal Fatigue
Metal Fatigue , is a futuristic science fiction, real-time strategy computer game developed by Zono Incorporated and published by Psygnosis and TalonSoft .-Plot:...
, raising and lowering a 3 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
mass onto a wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...
cylinder 3,000,000 times before it fracture
Fracture
A fracture is the separation of an object or material into two, or more, pieces under the action of stress.The word fracture is often applied to bones of living creatures , or to crystals or crystalline materials, such as gemstones or metal...
d and showing that a static load of 12 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
was needed for such an effect.
He experimented with glass cylinders and was able to show that the hoop stress
Hoop stress
Circumferential stress is a type of mechanical stress of a cylindrically shaped part as a result of internal or external pressure.The classic example of circumferential stress is the tension applied to the iron bands, or hoops, of a wooden barrel...
in the wall was twice the longitudinal stress. When a cylindrical boiler failed, it usually fractured along its length owing to the high hoop stress in the wall.
Investigations
Boiler explosion
A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. As seen today, boiler explosions are of two kinds. One kind is over-pressure in the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. The second kind is explosion in the furnace. Boiler explosions of pressure parts are particularly associated...
s. His report on the collapse of a mill at Oldham showed the poor design methods used by architects when specifying cast iron girders for supporting heavily loaded floors, for example. In another report, he condemned the use of trussed cast iron girders, and advised Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson FRS was an English civil engineer. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer; many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son.-Early life :He was born on the 16th of...
not to use the concept in a bridge then being built over the river Dee
River Dee, Wales
The River Dee is a long river in the United Kingdom. It travels through Wales and England and also forms part of the border between the two countries....
at Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
in 1846. The bridge collapsed in May 1847, killing 5 people who were passengers on the local train passing over the structure at the time. The Dee bridge disaster
Dee bridge disaster
The Dee bridge disaster was a rail accident that occurred on 24 May 1847 in Chester with five fatalities.A new bridge across the River Dee was needed for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, a project planned in the 1840s for the expanding British railway system. It was built using cast iron girders,...
raised concerns about the integrity of many other railway bridges already built or about to be built on the rail network.
Fairbairn conducted some of the first serious studies of the effects of repeated loading of wrought and cast iron girders, showing that fracture could occur by crack growth from incipient defects, a problem now known as fatigue
Fatigue (material)
'In materials science, fatigue is the progressive and localized structural damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic loading. The nominal maximum stress values are less than the ultimate tensile stress limit, and may be below the yield stress limit of the material.Fatigue occurs...
. He built large-scale testing apparatus for the studies, and was partly funded by the Board of Trade
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions...
.
He also conducted experiments on pressurized cylinders of glass and was able to show that the highest stress
Stress (physics)
In continuum mechanics, stress is a measure of the internal forces acting within a deformable body. Quantitatively, it is a measure of the average force per unit area of a surface within the body on which internal forces act. These internal forces are a reaction to external forces applied on the body...
in the wall occurs around the diameter. It is known as the hoop stress
Hoop stress
Circumferential stress is a type of mechanical stress of a cylindrically shaped part as a result of internal or external pressure.The classic example of circumferential stress is the tension applied to the iron bands, or hoops, of a wooden barrel...
and is twice the value of the longitudinal stress which occurs along the length of the cylinder. The precise value depends only on the wall thickness and the internal pressure. His work was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society and was of great help in analysing failures in steam boilers and pipes. In 1854 he founded the Manchester Steam Users' Association, which quickly became recognised as setting national standards for high-pressure steam boilers. As the "Associated Offices Technical Committee" of British insurers the MSUA remains a national certification authority.
Honours
- President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical SocietyManchester Literary and Philosophical SocietyThe Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, popularly known as the Lit & Phil, is a learned society in Manchester, England.Established in 1781 as the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, by Thomas Percival, Thomas Barnes and Thomas Henry, other prominent members have included...
, (1855–1859) - BaronetBaronetA baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
, (of ArdwickFairbairn BaronetsThe Fairbairn Baronetcy, of Ardwick in the County of Lancaster, is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 2 November 1869 for the prominent Scottish engineer William Fairbairn. Another member of the family to gain distinction was Bernard Fairbairn , grandson of William...
), 2 November 1869 - A statue stands in Manchester Town HallManchester Town HallManchester Town Hall is a Victorian-era, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. The building functions as the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments....
- Fellow of the Royal Society elected 1850 (Gold Medal 1860)
- President of the British Association 1861
Works
- Experiments to determine the effect of impact, vibratory action, and long continued changes of load on wrought iron girders, (1864) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London vol. 154, p311
- The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, Bart., (ed. W. Pole, 1877)