Steam Pile Driver
1840 · Pile Driver · Work 106 of 1,871
A steam pile driver on a timber staging over water, hammer raised at the top of its leader frame, driven piles in a line receding across the river.
- What it was used for
- The steam pile driver drove piles for quay walls, docks and bridges. In 1843 James Nasmyth carried the principle of his hammer over to pile driving: the hammer block and its guides sat directly on the pile head and travelled down with it. In July 1845 the machine was ready at Devonport; soon after, the men of the old pile-driver challenged it to a contest. By Nasmyth's own account it drove a pile 70 feet long and 18 inches square to its depth in four and a half minutes, with a four-ton block striking eighty blows a minute, while the old machine working beside it took more than twelve hours over its pile.
- What was new
- What was new was the reversal of the striking pattern: not a few heavy blows with long pauses, during which the ground grips the pile again, but eighty light blows a minute keeping it moving. With it came the fact that the machine no longer had to be erected over the pile but rode on it. One caveat belongs here: the figures for that contest come from Nasmyth's autobiography, that is from the inventor's own account, printed in 1883, thirty-eight years after the day. No independent measurement could be found.
Connections
Every connection names its kind. “Forerunner” on its own would be a claim.
- Follows fromNasmyth Steam Hammer1839Nasmyth carried his steam hammer over to pile driving: the hammer block rides in guides sitting on the pile head. In his autobiography, chapter "Steam Hammer Pile Driver", he writes that he had already secured a patent for this application of the hammer; the trial was at Devonport on 3 July 1845.Source: James Nasmyth, Engineer: An Autobiography, Kapitel XV 'Steam Hammer Pile Driver' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Core) · James Nasmyth, Autobiographie, Kapitel 15, Volltext bei Grace's Guide