Monday, June 30, 2008

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Engineering Titan

I've published a brief biographical article outlining some of Brunel's spectacular achievements in 19th century Britain.

Here's an excerpt:
In 1843 another Brunel first took to the sea: the SS Great Britain. It was so mammoth it had to be fastened together with over three million rivets, used to connect 30,000 wrought iron plates. The ship was so large the engineer had to invent new methods of launching a ship from drydock. It took 21 hydraulics over three weeks to get it into the water.

But the real innovation lay in its method of propulsion. It was the first ocean-going iron ship with a screw propeller. Brunel’s propeller design was a feat of genius. It was so efficient that even contemporary designs, aided by supercomputers working on advanced hydrodynamic equations, have improved upon it by only five percent.

Still, the great engineer was just getting warmed up...


See the full article at Atlasphere

[Note: If required, registration is free and you don't have to supply any personal information.]

If you go there, please rate the article. Comments are also very welcome.

1 comment:

Rehana said...

Hey there!

I came across the whole article at the atlasphere.. It's awesome.. What a man.. I'd never heard of him, but after reading your article, I truly feel that it's a shame that we spend so much of our reading and learning time on useless things rather than getting some important knowledge on what matters.. Anyways, nice article. :)