The development of iron British piers in the XIX century. The discovery of new materials

Abstract

In this article, the authors study the decadence of wood piers along XIX century, mainly because of problems inherent to the attacks of invertebrates. Soon, the wood structures will be substituted by iron ones, appearing two extraordinary materials, cast iron and wrought iron. Cast iron was a material with a great compression resistance, but weak for traction and flexion. It was not welding, but its resistance to the corrosion was notable, because of it, was very used at piles of British sea piers. On the contrary, wrought iron offered high conditions for traction and flexion, so it appeared like a very useful material to make girders and joists, but suffering the problem of a lack of resistance to corrosion. The combination of both materials supposed a great success in the construction of bridges and piers, since 1850.

Keywords

• british piers
• cast iron
• wrought iron
• materials resistance
• corrosion